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Emile Habibi: The Mirror of Irony in Palestinian Literature
Author(s): Akram F. Khater

Source: Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1993), pp. 75-94
Published by: Brill
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Journal of Arabic Literature, XXIV
EMILE HABIBI:
THE MIRROR OF IRONY IN PALESTINIAN LITERATURE
It is rare to find laughter in the works of modern Arab poets or

novelists. The reality of military and political defeat, social decay and
dislocation-both physical and psychic-overwhelm and permeate
modern Arabic literature to an oppressive extreme. It is as if laughter
particularly from a sense of irony, has become an illegitimate or
untenable response to the problems of the Arab world. Indeed, the
literary response to these crises has generally been either bleak social
realism or self-involved individual alienation from society and its
problems and failures.'
Emile Habibi is one of the few writers who prefer to laugh. From the
same existentialist questions that have produced angst in the writings of
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Ghassan Kanafani, and Elias Khouri, Habibi
extracts laughter; from the pain he pulls out humor; from the maladies
he produces satire. But Habibi's work isn't just a passage between past
and future over the abyss of the present, for he does not gloss over
tragedy. Rather, he uses irony-the main literary current in his work-
as a mirror from which the laughter is reflected as heightened tragedy.
In other words, while Habibi does shun the "heaviness, inertia, and
opacity"2 that have weighed down Arabic literature, he does not avoid
acknowledging the reality of a world full of tragedy. In fact it is his acute
awarness of these tragedies that leads him along the literary path of irony
' In the 1950s social realism under the rubric of al-adab al-multazim(committed
literature) was the rule rather than the exception in Arabic prose literature.
Stereotypically, this strand of didactic prose split the world into the absolute realms of
good and evil, us and them, hero and villain. Pedagogical in their approach, these works
rendered the society and its people flat in their one dimensionality, be it positive or
negative. In the sixties the "happy" ending, which characterized the realism of the fif-
ties, was no longer tenable because of the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, and the "Arab
novelist had to resort to suspending or diffusing the ending," (Muhyi el-Din Subhi,
Dirdsdt dud al-wdqiCiyafi al-adab al-carabi, p. 44) such that the "hero" becomes unable to
right any of the wrongs outlined in the previous one, two or three hundred pages. Then
in the Seventies a literature of the alienated began to emerge. Nausea, disgust and qalaq
(Angst) became the dominant themes in the works of novelists like Yuisuf Idris with his
book al-Nuqta(The Point), and Sana'allah Ibrahim's Tilkaal-rdibha(That Smell!). This
trend has also found expression, to an even more poignant and powerful level, in the
poetry of Khalil Hawi, Adonis, Nizar Qabbani and Ahmad Najm. In the reified sense
of reality that prose and poetry alike consecrated, the past becomes an oppressive
nightmare haunting the present and obscuring the future.
2 Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, p. 20.
76 EMILEHABIBI
and satire. Italo Calvino echoes this approach when he notes in his book,
Six Memosfor theNext Millenium,
Sometimes the whole world seems to me to have become stone..., this slow
petrification spares no single aspect of life. It is as if no one has escaped
the merciless look of Medusa...Only one hero is capable of cutting
Medusa's head off: Persas... To cut Medusa's head off without becoming
stone Persas had to depend upon the lightest of things, clouds and wind;
and his look settled on what only an indirect vision could reveal to him;
that is to say on an image captured in a mirror.3
Similarly, Emile Habibi takes recourse in the lightness of being and use
of the mirror of irony while seeking to "see" the Medusa of the Palesti-
nians, in order to avoid the current social and literary petrification.
Laughter, in this sense, can only derive from a clearer understanding of
the elements oppressing individuals and society, and as such it becomes
a potent tool or weapon with which to overcome those obstacles to
humanity. The "Jester" in Habibi's play-Luka' bin Luka '-poignantly
speaks the author's mind when he says:
Laugh! For Laughter unleashes the tongue and cures muteness
Oh! you generations of silence, it is time for you to laugh.
Speak! And if you don't speak, then laugh!
Laugh all of you, laugh; if they stifle your moans, then explode with
laughter.
Laughter is a very sharp weapon with only one edge.
If all of the prisoners laughed together at the same instant, and continued
to laugh, then will the jailer be able to laugh?4
Habibi uses the tool of laughter to reclaim the identity of the Palestinian-
Israelis from the throes of the hegemonic State, historical amnesia, and
mindless materialism. His novels challenge and push aside the apparent
and accepted "realities" to get at the "really real" elements of human
nature and society. He employs words-old and new-to link that com-
munity to a rich Arabic heritage in a way that would not lock it into
ossified traditions, but that would give it the impetus and strength to seek
a new identity to break the boundaries of victimization and self-doubt.5
3 Op. cit.
4 Emile Habibi, Luka' bin Luka', pp. 60-61.
5 Many of the authors mentioned in this paper have to one extent or another, either
obliquely or directly, criticized the hold of tradition on Arab society and literature, but
no one has gone as far as Adonis in their criticism. In 1974, Adonis wrote a trilogy,
entitled Al-Thdbitwa-al-mutahawwil[The Static and the Dynamic], that was a critical
study of Arabic poetry from its roots to the present day. By selecting particularexamples
from each age and comparing them from the point of view of creativity versus ossifica-
tion, Adonis tries to prove that Islam as a socio-political force has inhibited the
flourishing of creative thinking and writing within Arab and Muslim society. As he put
EMILEHABIBI 77
This agenda-optimistic but hardly naive or illusory-is one element

that distinguishes Habibi as a modern Arab thinker and activist; his light
and effective writing style makes him a noteworthy writer in a field that
is filled with morose words groaning under the weight of doubt. It is this
vision and style-as manifested in Habibi's two novels, The StrangeCir-
cumstances in the Disappearanceof Sa'Cd Abu al-Nahs the Pessoptimist and
Ikhtayyi-which we will explore in the following pages.
Identity and the Absurd

It is out of the absurdities that punctuate the daily lives and histories
of Palestinians living in Israel that Habibi derives his material. It is the
absurdity of being Arab in a Jewish state, and of being Palestinian in a
state that completely rejectsthat notion, which propels Habibi's work. As
he states, "I had a specific goal [when writing these novels] and it is to
show the absurdity of the ethnic oppression in Israel..."6 In addition,
there is also the less apparent but increasingly important and relevant
absurdity of being an Israeli to Palestinians and Arabs on the outside.
From these two extremes, confusion on all levels emerges as the order of
the day for the Israeli-Palestinian. For Habibi, these absurdities and the
confusion-the Medusas if you will-can only be rendered tangible,
comprehensible, and hence finally conquered by literary absurdity of the
same measure. Therefore, and from the outset, both novels suspend our
sense of belief, disrupt reality, and challenge normalcy by indulging in
the fantastic, supernatural and even science-fictional.
Early on in Habibi's first novel, SaCidthePessoptimist, Sacid is beckoned
into the "dungeons of Acre" by an "extra-terrestrialbeing, with a long
blue robe that looks like the sea, and eyes that shone like the stars."7 This
subterranean meeting marks the start of Sacid's "friendship" with the
extra-terrestrial,who appears on and off throughout the story mostly to
admonish, but sometimes to give advice, and finally to snatch Sacid out
of his crazy world. It was a very appropriate moment for this apparition,
coinciding as it did with Sacid's return in 1948 to the city of his
it, "the relationship between Al-Thabit and Al-Mutahawwilwas not dialectic but con-
tradictory, which led to the violence with which Al-Thibit overcame Al-Mutahawwiland
destroyed all the attempts of any creative instinct." (Adonis, Al-Thdbitwa-al-mutabawwil,
vol. 3, p. 147). Whether or not one agrees with the sweeping generalizations that charac-
terize the book, or with the analytical methods that Adonis uses in his critical study, there
is no doubt that Adonis' work provides the best example of the disillusionement with the
cultural and intellectual ossification that Arab society is suffering from.
6 Quoted in
Farouq Wadi's Thalith Aldmdtfi al-riwdyaal-filisiniy>a,p. 138.
7 Emile Habibi, The StrangeCircumstances in the Disappearanceof SaCid Abu al-Nahs the
Pessoptimist,p. 127.
78 EMILE HABIBI
childhood-which had just passed into the hands of the Israelis-and the
beginning of a life of the absurd as Sacld himself declares to his extra-
terrestrial friend,
Let us start from the beginning. All my life was strange. And the strange
life can only have a strange ending...
So when was the beginning?
The beginning was when I was born a second time thanks to a donkey.
During the 1948 events they [the Jewish forces] ambushed and fired upon
us. So they killed my father. God have mercy upon him. As for me, a stray
donkey came between me and them so they killed him. So he died for me.
My life, that I have lived since in Israel, is the gift of that poor donkey.
So how do we evaluate my life, my dear sir?8
On that fateful night, huddled in the mosque of the city with Palestinian
refugees who were waiting for day break and for clarity in their destiny,
SaCid is plunged into a life racked by the absurd, where the real and sur-
real are hard to differentiate, at least from his view point. On that night,
the refugees are loaded to be taken to the border and deported-but to
which border, and whither deported, remains uncomfortably vague.
However, Sacid had distinguished himself early on at glossing over the
uncomfortably vague in order to go on living.
Thus, and in continuing a family tradition of collaboration, SaCid
starts to work for the newborn Israeli state as an informer and agitator
against the "radical"-i.e. nationalist and communist-elements in the
ranks of the Palestinian workers who remained in Israel after 1948. How-
ever, his subservience to the state, and the submission of his "Palesti-
nianism" to the domination of the "Israelism" of his superiors, are
juxtaposed throughout the novel with his continuing ties to his Palesti-
nian roots and rights. SaCid's love for Yucid (To be returned)-the name
of the three women in his life who represent as a whole the memories of
past traditions and the hope for a future Palestine-his son and wife who
die refusing his submissive silence, and his meeting with a fiddf in an
Israeli prison-an alter ego called SaCid-all represent the ties that SaCid
cherishes and seeks in an identity. But he is never able to emerge from
his dilemma with a clear decision as to which side he belongs to. The con-
fusion of a life plagued by such existentialist questions places Sacid on a
"long smooth shaft"9 with the only way off being to jump into the
unknown. Even then he avoids dealing with his present quandry, and
escapes through the fantasies of the past and future by flying away on the
magic carpet of his extra-terrestrial friends.
8 Op. cit., pp. 61-62.

9 Op. cit., p. 125.
EMILEHABIBI 79
So, Habibi provides SaCid with the fantastical third choice of extra-
terrestrial help. This solution hovers between the plausible and ridiculous
throughout the book, holding us-as readers-between belief and
disbelief until the last part where the narrator, who had been receiving
SaCid's letters, tries to find him. The narrator's search ends in an asylum
for the mentally ill where someone who resembles Sacid resided, but who
had passed away only a few days earlier. At this point Habibi ends the
book as follows:
If you believe this tale [of Sacid's supernatural friend and science-fictional
flight on a magical carpet] then you would be like the doctor at an asylum
who had a patient who would sit all day dipping a brush into an empty
bucket and then brushing the wall with the imaginary paint, and who
claimed to have buried a treasure underneath a tree. The doctor finds out
from the patient where the treasure is supposedly buried. A few days pass
and the doctor comes back looking messy and dirty and says to the
patient: "I dug all around the spot that you told me about, but I couldn't
find the treasure!" So the patient hands him an empty bucket and a brush
and invites the doctor to join him in painting the wall.10
All the comfort of that "third" extra-terrestrial solution, regardless of
how implausible it was, is suddenly withdrawn and we-even if SaCidhas
managed to evade the question-are faced with only two moral and
political choices. These represent the two extremes of identity-Israeli
and Palestinian-and the tension between them that was, and is, ever
present and apparent in daily life."
In the later novel, Ikhtayyi, the struggle for a Palestinian identity con-
tinues in an equally fantastic setting, albeit the categories of "Palesti-
nian" and "Israeli" are no longer as neatly distinct and the choice is no
longer as clear. The passage of time has blurred the borders and allowed
memories to fade. Political reality has deflated the hopes placed in a
Palestinian struggle and Arab support. Thus the Palestinian identity slips
under an Israeli facade that has thickened and is threatening to choke the
last remnants of Ayydmal-CArab(The Glorious Days of the Arabs) before
'48. At this crucial moment, a tall extra-terrestrial being, "with his head
in the clouds", appears at a busy intersection in Haifa and arrests the
traffic and life for all those-as opposed to an extra-terrestrial who
appeared only to SaCid in the first novel-who happened to be there at
10 Op. cit., p. 167.

11 In the early 1970s, when Sa¢idAbu al-Nahs the Pessoptimistwas written, the two
personalities-Israeli and Palestinian-were still distinct in the hearts and minds of those
Palestinians residing in Israel, the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli state was still
hopeful, and the Arab dream of unity still lingered on, albeit tarnished by many years
of inter-Arab feuding.
80 EMILEHABIBI
that fateful moment;'2 amongst them was the narrator. This apparition
and the ensuing traffic "heart attack" unleashed the investigative
apparatus of the Israeli state in all of its bureaucratic inanity and
paranoid assumptions. So the police conducted
An investigation of the sort that they call "complete". And one of its rules
is that they [the police] do not leave any passerby...without suspecting
that he is an Arab. And they don't let any suspects leave before
investigating the hell out of them.'3
The flurry of investigations, which brought together "high officers" and
a "professor who understands the 'Arab Mentality'"', uncovered one
level of the ridiculous after another. First, the investigative committee
claimed that it must have been an "oriental" UFO that had appeared
in Haifa, because it caused the people there to fall into a trance and
slumber, while an "occidental" UFO would have caused excitement
instead. Then, the investigation went on to extract a confession of guilt
from "a young Arab lawyer in a Jaguar" that happened to be the first
car at that intersection. In response, "three Palestinian organizations, at
least, claimed responsibility for the operation," and the Arab League
preferred "silence.'1"5 The slogans released by pseudo-nationalists, the
accusations levelled by the investigators, and the guilt felt by every
Israeli-Arab for simply being an Arab-which is hardly distinguishable
in most instances-are the main elements that make up the absurd reality
of life for a Palestinian in Israel. The greatest absurdity, however, is the
label born of these elements: Israeli-Palestinian. Not only are these iden-
tities, in their current social, cultural and political manifestations con-
tradictory, but they co-exist in the same individual.
The response to, and the tragedy behind this bizzare situation, is that
most Palestinians inside Israel, and within the novel Ikh.tayy, have
shuffled their Arab identity out of sight, and absorbed the Israeli suspi-
cion of any "Arabness."'6 By the end of the book the appearance of the
extra-terrestrial is shown to be no more than the collective "ghosts" of
the past emerging out of memories, buried deep under a false sense of
normalcy and strained identity, to claim recognition. Along the way to
12 Emile Habibi, Ikh/ayyf,p. 14.

'3 Op. cit., p. 21.
14
Op. cit., p. 22.
15 Op. cit., p. 22.
16 Ironically, this is exactly the same experience that many Jews living in Eastern and
Pre-WWII Western Europe lived through. For instance, Szymon Datner-a Polish-Jew
who survived the Holocaust-describes Polish-Jews who had remained in Poland after
WWII as "hiding" behind their 'Polishness' in order to avoid any further victimiza-
tion." (See Robert Fisk's Pity theNation, p. 5).
EMILE HABIBI 81
that conclusion we encounter the guilty conscience of the Palestinian pro-

tagonists through stories remembered of people and times forgotten. The
guilt derives from the abandonment of the beloved Ikhtayy- the name of
the mysterious girl whom every Palestinian boy loved but did not dare
tell her-of Palestine, of Haifa and its streets, and of the traditions of
Ayydm al-'Arab. The tensions of a split identity, or more correctly of a
Palestinian identity subsumed under a pale imitation of the Israeli char-
acter, is finally confronted in the novel by the question: "His Ikhtayyi
[Palestine], how did he leave her, why did he leave her, and how is she
after him?"17
Within both of these novels the absurd is two-faced: it is comic and
tragic. Even as we laugh at the linguistic and situational comedies with
which Habibi peppers his novels, we are also forced to respond to the
sense of tragedy that gives rise to them, or-better still-that is mirrored
in them. After all, it is only a fine line which separates tragedy from com-
edy, and ironic portrayal of one only heightens our awareness of the com-
plementary other. In The Pessoptimist, Sacid is quite aware of the tragic
in his "dull and routine life" at many crucial moments when irony reigns
supreme. Such is the time when an Israeli general, Sacd's superior,
threatens to shoot a baby in the arms of his Palestinian mother if she does
not leave her village and cross the border to refugee life in Lebanon;
Sacid elects to crouch behind a rock in preparation to pounce on the
officer if he shoots.18 The image of SaCid crouching is comic, yet a few
steps away is the height of Palestinian tragedy-expulsion from the land
to become refugees. And only a few sentences away-when he explains
that the officer did not shoot because he was crouching-is the tragedy
of Salid's life: his helplessness. This theme is replayed over and over (the
soldiers drag away his beloved YuC'd despite his collaboration; his son
and wife are killed by Israeli soldiers with him standing by, and so on)
throughout the novel, effectively taking us along the emotional ups and
downs of Sacid's life, and incorporating us into the moral dilemma of his
time and place.
Similarly, in Ikhtayyf Habibi's biting sarcasm makes us laugh at the
feebleness of the protagonists only to sadden us later at our own
weaknesses. When the narrator in that story is told to distribute the
"party's" communist-banned-paper, he solicits the help of Catfya,the
shoe-shining boy who used to clean the shoes of the narrator. The whole
incident is "funny" in its depiction of human failure in the face of lofty
ideals; and we laugh at the narrator's weakness as well as at what it
17 Emile Habibi, Ikhtayyi,p. 124.

18 Emile Habibi, SacidAbu al-Na.hsthe
Pessoptimist,p. 16.
82 EMILEHABIBI
reflects of our own failings. But when ¢atfya comes back to the coffee
shop-where the narrator is "hiding"-all beaten up, the laughter
freezes in mid-air and we, having participated in the moral failure, are
faced with the pain of the resulting tragedy.19
The tragedy in Ikhtayyi,even more than in the previous works of
Habibi, derives from the sense of loss of identity and lost love. But the
riddle behind this loss is the same throughout. "Who are WE?" is the
agonizing question that in The Pessoptimist was continuously
confronted-if not answered-while in Ikhtayyiit was camouflaged, hid-
den and tucked away under the blanket of time and false identities. And
in ThePessoptimist it still seemed that the tragedy could be curtailed, if not
rolled back, by armed struggle on the outside and radical confrontation
from the inside. In Ikhtayyithese no longer seem possible recourses for
the Palestinian-Israeli, and the tragedy has to be confronted by memory
and remembrance. The memories of renting bicycles and pedalling to the
beach past nostalgically fragrant citrus orchards, and of childhood love
replaced thefidd'f and the martyrdom elements of ThePessoptimist. Using
these new ingredients, Habibi reaffirms the Palestinian identity in the
face of attempts by the state and time to supplant it; and his tools are his
words.20 But just as much as the times have changed, the words must
change as well. This is where Habibi's contribution to Palestinian
writing, and to Arab literature in general, is most striking.
19 In this later novel, the sense of tragedy is much more distinct from the comic than
in any of Habibi's earlier works. For while in the ThePessoptimist the tragic and the comic
co-exist in the character of Saild in Ikhtayyfthese two elements are separated by murural-
zamdn.So as the novel progresses, and time passes objectively and subjectively, the narra-
tion goes from the comic to the tragic in ironic twists: the irony of the situation that
necessitates the shift, and the irony of the shift itself.
20 In SacidAbual-NahsthePessoptimist the tension is between two distinct identities that
pulled and tugged Said- an individual-over a barrel of political and social uncertainty.
In Ikhlayyit is the whole of Arab society in Israel that has avoided the question of identity
by hiding beneath Hebrew store names, by speaking Hebrew fluently, and pledging
allegiance to the Israeli flag. Although the "Israeli" cover might be a thin facade behind
which to avoid the existential question of identity, there is a definite shift towards
recognizing the reality of the State of Israel. This shift is brought about by the passage
of time that has distanced the Palestinian-Israeliphysically and mentally from the Palesti-
nians in diaspora, and that, however distasteful it might be, has tied the fortunes of
Palestinian-Israelis to that of Israeli itself. Even Habibi, who struggles to bring such
questions to light, falls prey to that reality when-in this later novel-he ignores the
tumultuous years of the '50s, '60s and '70s when the Arab "Revolutionary" spirit,
presence and actions defined, to a large extent, the role and identity of the Palestinian
as a guerilla struggling to get his/her rights from a temporary Zionist "entity." Instead,
Habibi harks back to those "golden" days of the early 1940s in search of an alternate
Palestinian identity which still reclaims the humanity and rights of the Palestinians living
in Israel, but now outside the realm of "revolutionary" ideologies and within the reality
of the state of Israel.
EMILE HABIBI 83
Language and Identity

At the beginning of Ikhtayyf the narrator recounts a riddle that his
father used to put to him and his brothers. The riddle is that which a king
posed to his three children in an effort to determine who was the smartest
and hence the most qualified to rule after him. Out of three green and
one red dots, the king placed one on the forehead of each of his blind-
folded sons. Once done, the blindfolds were removed, and the king
announced that the first to figure out the color of the dot in his forehead
would inherit the kingdom. For an hour the sons puzzled over the mat-
ter, till finally the youngest exclaimed "I know!"21 The narrator's father
in Ikhtayyiwould then ask his sons for the solution of that riddle. By the
end of the novel, the narrator declares,
It is murural-zamdn(the passage of time) on this matter without any of us
being able to arrive at an answer that led me to the answer-to a most
obvious answer.22
This is not only the obvious answer to his father's question, but also, and
more importantly, to the riddle about the identity of the Palestinians liv-
ing in Israel. Looking at each other for hours, days and years, these
Palestinians see what the dot/identity is of other people but seem
singularly unable to guess the color of their own identity. The obvious
answer is never divulged in the novel, but its location is announced. The
answer resides with the Cifr/tof memories and history that is within each
and every Palestinian. If such is the case, then the rhetorical question is
obviously, "So what prevents us from crossing the threshold to the
inside?'"23
Rather than pretend to the existence of one answer as al-adab al-
multazim (committed literature) has done all along, Habibi proposes his
exploration of the Palestinian-Arab identity as one possible path towards
solving the crisis which he sees as permeating the daily lives of Palesti-
nians and which posits this question. For him to write in Arabic, in a
Hebrew environment, is already taking a step towards reclaiming his
Arab identity; the act of reading becomes then a reaffirmation of a
similar identity. This identity, however, is by no means clearly defined
or set, for Habibi raises questions but does not always answer them. For
him writing is, as Elias Khouri remarked
21 Emile
Habibi, Ikhlayyi,p. 2. The youngest son realizes that since none of the three
sons saw a red dot, they all must have green dots, including himself.
22 Op. cit., p. 86.
23
Op. cit., p. 87.
84 EMILEHABIBI
A continuous question about meaning, and about...the unknown.

Writing [then] is a journey or an adventure, and to write is to ask, to ask
is to doubt, and to doubt means not knowing...24
It is an adventure into the unknown and not a story with a moral. His
language reflects this uncertainty and the tentative search for an identity
that resides solidly in the present without losing all contact with the past.
In his constant weaving of old poetry into modern tales, juxtaposing of
classical and coined words, and borrowing stories and structures from
medieval Arabic literature, Habibi effectively bridges the gap of
linguistic and cultural alienation.
One example of this is to be found in his style of writing. Habibi writes
in a style that strongly resembles that of the medieval maqdmdt. His
meanderings between seemingly unrelated stories reminds one
immediately of maqdmital-Harfn' with its motley collection of "quotations
from the Qur'an..., choice metaphors, and Arab proverbs..., literary
elegancies, and grammatical riddles, and decisions on ambiguous legal
questions, and original improvisations, and highly-wrought orations,
and plaintive discourses, as well as jocose witticisms."25 Just as the
reader of the maqimat is amused by the tales and predicaments of human
nature highlighted in flowery prose, so one finds amusements in Habibi's
vignettes.
However, there are distinct differences between the medieval genre
and Habibi's modernized version of the maqdma.For instance, the earlier
genre has no overall tension or structure to hold the stories together, and
the reader can be no more than an amused observer who feels little
attachment to characters like that of the wiley Abou-Zaid of Seroug. Nor
does the reader have to face any moral dilemmas, as the stories do not
highlight any. In fact, the "subject-matter of the work is entirely subor-
dinate"26 to style. In comparison, Habibi's novels retain a central theme
even when they divert into side-tales. Moreover, these tales are not
incidental or "groundwork for the exhibition of.. rhetorical skill."'27
Although they amuse, just as their distant relatives did, they also help to
build the structure of the whole novel. Thus the tale of the judge and the
Cifjt in the jar28 is not sidestepping the main issues of the novel. Rather,
24
Al-Haydtnewspaper,March 1990, p. 12, interviewwith the Lebanesewriterand
critic Elias Khouri.
25 TheodorePreston,Makimator Rhetorical
Anecdotes of Arabia,p. 28.
of al-Harfrn
26 Op. cit., p. vii.
27 Op. cit.
28
Emile Habibi, Ikhlayyi,pp. 13-15: "The blasted devil decided to humiliatea
venerable...shaykh.This shaykhused to host the bedouinsto judge betweenthemand
counselthem. So, the blasteddevil placedhimselfin a jar facingthe judge...andwore
a smallhorse'shead. Everytime the judge beganto speak,the devil wouldpeekout of
EMILE HABIBI 85
it is an allegory showing how even those Palestinians who remember the

Arab past, and recognize their Palestinian identity in the midst of a
Jewish society, have to refrain from proclaiming their views and
memories publicly for fear of being considered mad by their fellow
Israeli-Palestinians. Similarly, the recounting of Mascfidi's historical
accuracy in calculating the number of days, hours, and minutes it takes
the earth to rotate around the sun, is pertinent to the sarcasm levelled at
the age of computers.29 It points an accusing finger at a modern age
where a few seconds might have been lopped off a calculation done hun-
dreds of years ago, while great measures of inhumanity and injustice
remain ever present.
Aside from their relevance to an overall structure, these tales-which
traverse time and space by leaps and bounds-are a shuttle weaving a
tapestry of life. This movement links the past to the present constructing,
out of a rich cultural heritage and a modern present, a tangible reality
for the Israeli-Palestinian which is distinct in flavor and texture from the
one imposed by the Israeli and accepted by the Palestinian residing in
Israel.
But Habibi is not satisfied with simply rejecting the traditional struc-
ture of a novel, "that tries to plug the holes of reality with ideology and
pre-fabricated thought."30 Language, to him, is an even more important
element in rendering an honest definition of a new reality for the
Palestinian-Israeli. In his novels, language is a malleable medium that is
vibrant through its connections to real life. As Elias Khouri comments,
"we write what is spoken and we do not ask that what we write be
spoken. We look for the language in the places of its rejuvenation, that
is in speech, and we bypass the holiness of language through the daily
mud of the colloquial."31 Moreover, the language which Habibi
chooses-a painfully honest one-reflects the contradictions of life,
which he is trying to describe. Language can no longer be, for Habibi's
purposes, a straightforward and clear path towards a simple solution for
an off-the-shelf plot. Instead, it has to be a mirror of the messiness of life
and the choices offered in a complex world.
the jar. So the judge was startled,and he shouted:"There is a horse in the jar!!' But
the devilwouldnot showitselfexceptto thejudge, so the peoplethoughtthatthejudge
had lost his mind, and they tookhim to one of theirdoctors...Therehe stayeda month
or two till he recuperatedand then went backto his house.Once againthe littlehorse's
head startedpeekingat him out of the jar, but this time thejudge held his tonguefrom
any excalmationsuntil everyonehad left. And when he was by himselfhe calledon the
devil in the jar: 'I see you, I see you"'.
29
Op. cit., p. 56.
30 Interviewwith Elias Khouri,Al-Haydtnewspaper,March1990, p. 12.
31 Op. cit.
86 EMILEHABIBI
Salid's aunt, mistakinghim for a

So it is that in ThePessoptimist,
governmentagent takingthe census, exclaimsin all sincerity:
I am ma.iiyya[i.e. countedin the census]!and shepronouncedit makhiyya
[castrated]as the soldierspronounceit...32
This is a languagerepletewith irony. It is the ironyof the mistaken,but
not so erroneous,identityof SaCldas a governmentagent. It is irony
inherentin the dualityof a Palestinian-Israeli's identity,as well as that
of a confusedsocietyto whichhe or she belongs.On anotherlevel, the
play on words [mahfiyya and makhiyya]-pronouncedas it is differently
by the oppressor and the oppressed-hints at the politicalimpotenceof
Palestiniansliving in Israelwhen it equatesbeingcountedin the census
of the state with castration.It is this impotenceagainst a dominant
politicalstructurewhichfeedsand nourishesthe confusionin the lives of
Palestiniansliving in Israel.
In Ikhtayythe confusioncomesacrossin its strongestand mostgeneral
form, and the existentialistquestion-"Who are WE?"-seems more
immediatewith its repercussionsfelt at greaterlevels withinthe Palesti-
nian segmentof Israelisociety. In this novel, it is Arabicand Hebrew,
and translationbetweenthem, whichform the elementsof that existen-
tialistquestion.The protagonistsin Ikhlayy£ speakHebrew,while in the
earliernovel Sa¢ldseemedthe only Palestinian who had learnedsomeof
it, andeven then not enoughto passforan Israeli.Therefore,in Ikhtayy£,
as opposed to the earlier novels, translationbetween languagesand
culturesemerges as a very real problemfor the Palestiniansliving in
Israel, complicatinglife even further.In one such instance, the Israel-
basednarratorin Ikhtayyi hadjust finishedhavinglunchwith his sister-
who was visiting fromJordan-when she exclaims:
Taldtamd! [i.e. the twoexchangedblows]I didn'tunderstand.So she said:
Isn't Talaamaa Hebrewword that means, in Arabic, "thankyou very
much"?...I said:the correctway to pronounceit is Todah Rabah.Then
my emigrant sister answeredme: So what is the differencebetween
and ta4Urabd
taldaamd [thetwo beateachotherup]?I responded:the truth,
my dear sister, is that there is no difference!33
By emphasizingthat the Hebrewversionof the Arabic"thankyou" is

to "exchangeblows", Habibi createsa doubleentendre.The first, and
most obvious, is the farce in the translationthat sheds light on the
32 Emile Habibi, SaCidAbu al-Nahs the Pessoptimist,p. 54.

33 Emile Habibi, Ikhlayyf,p. 24.
EMILEHABIBI 87
cultural differences and gaps34 that have come-since the first novel-to
separate two Palestinians residing on the opposite sides of the 1948
border. It is a distance that Habibi acknowledges throughout this second
novel, albeit in a muted form. Such a distance cannot but make more
ambiguous the contours of the Arab identity for a Palestinian in Israel.
Secondly, the more political meaning of this conversation lies within the
cultural translation where Arab politeness is juxtaposed with Israeli
rudeness; or "to thank" is "to exchange blows." This juxtaposition is
as much a definition of the political power of each of the two segments
of Israeli society, as it is a question of approach to power and its use. So,
and this a question that Habibi leaves hanging in the aftermath of that
conversation, where does this leave the Palestinian-Israeli? Which
language is his or hers? How would they translate between languages and
cultures? And to which reality will they subscribe: thanking or exchang-
ing blows?
The choice between languages in Habibi's works is not just a matter
pertaining to confusion in identity, but, more importantly, to an imposi-
tion of one. To "name" things in Hebrew, the official language of the
Jewish state, is an act of cultural hegemony that only further consecrates
the reality of political hegemony. Habibi highlights this struggle through
absurd linguistic manifestations. In Ikhtayyf it is the case of the street
names in Haifa. After 1948 "they"-the state-renamed one of these
streets as ,ahfunia [Zionism] instead of "United Nations" in their attempt
to "Hebraise" the city. Then "they",
immortalized the new name by engraving it, with numbers going from 1
to 32, on the garbage barrels in the $ahfuniastreet. So you read on one
garbage barrel: Zionism-13, or on another Zionism-23.35
In this context, Arabic, the language of a minority barely tolerated,
unavoidably becomes a statement of opposition to that hegemony, and
an affirmation of the persisting Arab identity-however limited and
feeble-in the land of the Jewish state.36 So the struggle becomes one of
affirming an identity and existence through language.
34 In the
change of linguistic emphasis Habibi reflects the change in the concerns and
realities of Palestinians in Israel. In The Pessoptimistthe question of translation-i.e.
communication-between Hebrew and Arabic was not raised, since at that time the
Palestinians in Israel were still tied to the recent memories of Palestine, which helped sus-
tain a cultural and linguistic wall between themselves and the Jewish part of Israeli
society. Yet with Ikhfayyi,which was written in 1982, those ties had been loosened and
the reality and hopes of Palestinians residing in Israel became increasingly centered-for
better or for worse-on the Israeli state. Hence, the process of translation from Hebrew
into Arabic became a necessity that could not be avoided.
ss Emile Habibi, Ikhkayyi,p. 25.
s6 It is important to note here the work of two other writers: Antoun Shammas, a
Palestinian-Israeli, and Yoram Kaniuk an Israeli-Arab. Shammas, who is of a younger
88 EMILEHABIBI
This cannot be simply the language of the "forefathers." Rather it has

to be a language that is forged out of the new realities facing the
Palestinian-Israeli. For it has to be a language of contradictions that were
not there forty or fifty years ago. Thus Habibi writes, in The Pessoptimist,
about an encounter between Sai'd and his Israeli 'boss' who had been
reciting poetry: "I [SaCid] wanted to equal him in shi'rihi [his poetry] so
he pulled me [down] by shaCri[my hair]".37 However amusing-for lack
of a better word-Sacid's pun might sound, its reality is far more painful.
Through this sentence Habibi shows the dissonance in power and the
divergence in expectations about roles within the social and political
hierarchy of Israel. And in the following pun Habibi twists language to
an even greater degree just to fit these twisted realities. Sacid muses:
.. .Repaying the cost of the war of Yom Kippur, andfawtaidfawd'idihd'[the
interest of its interests], until the day of dayn(or dfn) [could be read either
as the day of the loan or the Day of Judgement], and the question of the
great dayydn[either the great creditor orJudge] is: what is thefd'ida? [what
is the use or what is the interest accumulated]38
The imagery evoked in this sentence is funny and irreverent, light and
fast. But contained in it is a linguistic pun, and inside that is Habibi's
criticism of religion and capitalism, both of which he regards as limiting
or corrupting elements in the lives of Palestinians. Hence, language is
not only a simple mirror that reflects, but one that charges the reflection
with meanings which reside in several layers. It is the intentional, yet
unpretentious, depth of these layers-which is greatest in Ikhtayy--that
separate Habibi's work from most Palestinian novels.
This depth is probably nowhere more profound or effective than when
generationthan Habibi, takesa differentapproachtowardschallengingthe hegemony

of the Hebrewlanguage.In his book-Arabesques-heuses Hebrewin its most classical
fashionto describethe memoriesandlivesof Palestinianslivingin theJewishstate.Thus,
Hebrewceasesto be exclusivelya vesselthatcontainsJewishmemories,for now it must
makeroom-albeit a very smallone in the beginning-for the memoriesof the Arabs
of Israel. In this manner,Shammasinterjectsthe realityof Palestinianexistenceand
historicalexperienceinto the consciousnessof the Jewish Israeli.On the otherhand,
YoramKaniuk(whoserealnameis YosefSherara)is an Israeliof Yemenitebackground
who is also in searchof an identity.In the introductionto his book, Confessions
ofA Good
Arab,he writes:"I'm still in hiding not becauseI am afraidof gettingcaught[by the
translatorsand interpretersof God whohavemadeHim so cruel],but becauseI am still
tryingto find an answerto the riddleof my life. If it wasn'tmy own neck I was putting
in thenooseandif it didn'thurtso much,thismighthavebeenquitea funnybook,about
as funny as the joke about the fastestrunnerin a wardof doubleamputees.The only
languageI can writethisbookin is Hebrew,but the angeris bi-lingual.WhenI translate
myselfI have to shoot at the mirrorbeforeit can shoot at me."
37 Both wordsare writtenin the same mannerexceptfor the pronounsuffixes;thus
a pun is constructed.
38 Emile Habibi, SacfdAbual-Nahsthe
Pessoptimist,p. 73.
EMILEHABIBI 89
Habibi resorts to the colloquial. When classical language falters in its

rigidity and inability to adjust to and express new circumstances and
tragedies, he either makes up new words or he falls back on colloquial
expressions without missing a literary beat. While it may have been
possible for him to convey the same information by a more circuitous
classical expression, Habibi opts for a more flexible and evocative
approach. He announces his intentions from the outset with titles like
Ikhtayy£which itself is a colloquial word. It is an expression that comes
out of the rural diction of peasant women. "It [the word Ikhtayytl carries
with it an incredible charge of human compassion that is helpless in the
face of calamity. For when our grandmothers would see a young man
slain they would stand helpless and say nothing but Ikhtayyi, which is to
say that the death of this young man is a sin."39 As important as it might
be that colloquial words are laden with an emotional history and
tradition-of which the cold classical language seems to be devoid-there
is another equally important dimension to Habibi's use of everyday
language in his writing; namely, that colloquial language distinguishes
between Arabs. Thus one can tell that an expression is Palestinian, Egyp-
tian, Moroccan, or Iraqi, and not simply Arab. This linguistic distinc-
tion undermines the notion of linguistic as much as political
Pan-Arabism. Conversely, to use Palestinian expressions is to confirm
the identity of the writer and of the problem in no uncertain terms. This
tendency in Habibi's work is generally apparent in all of his writings, but
it is particularly noticeable in Ikhfayyi-his latest novel-where he aims
sarcastic remarks at the impotence of the Arab League and the corrup-
tion of the Arab rulers. This does not mean that Habibi totaly rejects his
Arabness, but that he is putting aside the ambiguity of that term for the
more concrete image-at least in his mind-of 'Palestinianism'.
In addition to colloquial words and expressions, Habibi resorts to the
creation of new words in telling his stories. For, like the seller of words
in Isabelle Allende's short story Two Words, Emile Habibi perused the
dictionary from Alif to Yda "then threw it into the sea, because ..[he]
had no intention of swindling ..[his] clients with prepackaged words."40
These new words serve to heighten the reality of life which he seeks to
describe, and it makes the problems and tensions more urgent. At first
this may not seem so noteworthy, since, after all Arabic has a built-in
structure through which new words are easily derived from the root
following specific models. Moreover, in English the tradition of making
39 "His cause is the same, but his style has changed," in an article on Habibi in
Filastinal-Thawra, No. 572, p. 50.
40 Isabelle
Allende, "Two Words," AtlanticMonthly,August 1989, p. 26.
90 EMILEHABIBI
up new-and mostly bizzare-words extends from Joyce to Kurt Von-

negut and beyond.'4 But Habibi does not simply fabricate words along
traditional Arabic models, but instead creates through his extraordinary
constructions rather bizzare visions that break grammatical rules. As he
stated in an interview, "I feel as if al-Jahiz is personally encouraging me
to invent words. "42 Thus, and in keeping with the wishes of al-J.hiz, we
find in Habibi's books words that make some people mew like cats, and
that depict others as "watermelonizing" [i.e. eating watermelons], and
we find words that are dual verbs or nouns of things that cannot or should
not be dual [mddin:two waters; SaCiddn: Two Sacid's; etc.]. Moreover,
the title of the novel, ThePessoptimist,is itself a construction of two states
of being, which embodies a particularPalestinian-Israelisituation that no
other word could properly describe: the state of being a pessimist and
optimist at the same time.
Apart from words, Habibi uses traditional linguistic structures in ways
that seem to bring out the absurd as much in the style as in the image.
Such is the case when he employs sajc, in phrases like "fa 'idhd 'atishnd
istabtkhnd [and if we get thirsty we watermelonize]".43 The strange verb
used to describe eating watermelons immediately stops the reader by its
absurdity. However, one is not halted to simply be amused. Rather, the
word and the style is a device that, unlike the mainly ornamental purpose
of traditional sajc, forces the reader to stop and understand the context
which makes the image amusing. Altogether, this unconventional-and
some would say irreverent-approach to grammar and linguistic order
is not just innovative, but it also reclaims the Arabic language from the
tradition. In sum, Habibi's linguistic devices and language innovations
form the elements of his vision of Palestinian identity.
Despite this, Habibi does not think it sufficient to simply assert one's
heritage in writing, or in any other way for that matter. Rather the
search for an identity and its proclamation have to be done from a critical
perspective which seeks to discern the Self and the Other, and from a
perspective of honesty and truth. As he states, "I have been faced with
the problems of what is called the literature of slogans. This style now
scares us. But I am sure that the problem is not in the slogan's style, but
4"Just recently, in an article that appeared in Harper'sMagazine(February 1990),

under the title of "What's the Word For..?", and which introduced a number of kluged
words, the authors wrote: "The very act of listing words-as in dictionaries-sets its own
limitations; atomizing the language by placing it in a time and place that almost
immediately becomes outmoded. Language is fluid, slowly cleansing itself of obselete
meanings and introducing new words to make sense of new circumstances and rela-
tionships".
42 Interview with Emile Habibi in Al-Karmilmagazine, No. 14, 1981,
p. 183.
43 Emile Habibi, SaCidAbu al-Nahs the Pessoptimist,p. 82.
EMILEHABIBI 91
in the honesty and truthfulness-or lack thereof-of the literary work."44

Through his writing Habibi is trying to tell "..the oppressed that you are
stronger than them [the oppressors] if you only knew."45 To know, for
Habibi, is an act of self-liberation and conquering of fears. The task he
sets for every Palestinian, Arab or human being for that matter, is to
remove the veil of ignorance and demolish the walls of silence, be it con-
structed of political oppression or of oppressive tradition: But this can
only be done by human action and not through divine intervention, as
the extra-terrestrial/Mahdi/Imam angrily responds when Sai'd pleads
with him to be saved,
This is the way you are! This is the way you are! When you can no longer
stand your miserable reality, and when you cannot bear to pay the price
for changing it-because you know it will be dear-then you come
rushing to ask for my help...46
To be saved, argues Habibi, we have to know, and to know we have to
question. Thus the protagonist in Ikhtayyzdeclares:
Questioning is the key to knowledge, and knowledge is the discovery of
new depths-mines of knowledge that exist but that are covered. Thus to
question is to destroy the rocks in order to open new mines.47
In this manner, Habibi makes life and its tragedies subject to human
choice and intervention. This is not to say that he simplifies these
problems, or promises simple solutions for very complicated issues, or
that he blurs the difference between victim and victimizer, oppressed and
oppressor, by appealing to some generic notion of individual freedom.
Rather, and while keeping these categories morally distinct, he presents
the victim with the responsibility of knowing oppression from within and
without. To hide away from Ikhtayyf-the Palestine woman of the Past-
or khatfla (from the same root as Ikh.tayyO),the guilt of the past, and to stay
on top of the fence are choices for which one has to be responsible. Dif-
ficult as it may be, there is also the choice to get off the fence, to face the
cifrit-the devil of the present-and to confront the shame. It is these
choices, whose difficulties are never underestimated, which endow
Habibi's characters and novels with their humanity.
This places Habibi within the existentialist tradition of writers like
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Ghassan Kanafani, and Tayib Salih who reject the
black and white colors with which "committed" literature paints in
broad brushstrokes. They reject the emphasis on the "hero"-virtuous,
44 Interview with Emile Habibi in Al-Kannil magazine, No. 14, 1981, p. 192.
41 Interview with Emile Habibi in Al-Karmilmagazine, No. 14, 1981, p. 192.
46 Emile Habibi, SacidAbu al-Nahs the Pessoptimist,p. 90.
47 Emile Habibi, Ikhlayyi,p. 112.
92 EMILEHABIBI
courageous, and strong-who represents the solution for, or the way out
of, the spiral of decay in Arab culture, society and politics. Although each
of them provides a different hierarchy of protagonists-persona who
morally rise above the rest-they never allow these images to soar to the
heights of the God-Hero. More importantly, they don't give their char-
acters a magic wand with which to right wrongs and conquer the dark.
Even in Tayeb Salih's Seasonof Migration to theNorth, when the protagonist
decides to live, at the end of the book, his decision does not answer all
the existentialist questions that led him in the first place to the middle of
the river. Rather, his decision is an acceptance of the dialectical relation-
ship between questions and answers, a relationship that leads to new
questions and the need for new answers. Beyond the similarity of
approach-or move away from the stale characters of "committed"
literature-lies a whole range of characters that differ as much as the
writers who create them. On one end there are the enigmatic per-
sonalities of Jabra's novels, who, however complex and developed they
may be, remain aloof from us as readers, forcing us to view their struggle
from a detached position. Habibi's Sacid at the other end of the spec-
trum, leaves no room for such aloofness and we are immediately drawn
into his life.
SaCidis far from being the typical "hero" of the Arab novel. He is a
weak character who submits to humiliations by authority, and who
cooperates with the State by working as an informant and agentprovocateur
against the communists. He even rationalizes his role at times, to the
extent that he terms his trip to jail, where he is beaten and degraded, as
part of his privileges, because he gets to ride next to the "Boss" in the
car.48The sense of irony that underlies this and other similar incidents
as well as SaCid'sawarness as narratorof that irony, combines the tragic,
the comic and the farcical and confirms the humanity of his ideals, feel-
ings and dreams. Even when we are ready to condemn SaCidas traitor
or collaborator, his humanity springs upon us. We are, then, left with
a feeling of ambivalence that reflects, and derives from, our own human
frailty. By levelling reader and protagonist, in terms of guilt, respon-
sibility and humanity, Habibi brings us down from the privileged posi-
tion of a moral high ground, and engages us in the same moral struggle
that Sacid is wrestling with. Sacid and Habibi ask who amongst us is
without Ikhtayyi? Who amongst us does not have an Cifr£thiding in the
jar? Who amongst us isn't human?49If these questions topple us from the
48 Emile Habibi, SacidAbu al-Nahs the Pessoptimist,p. 34.
49 This last
question- "Who amongst us is not human?"-has been addressedequally
strongly by a group of Lebanese women writers, labelled as the "Beirut Decentrists" by
Miriam Cooke in her book War's OtherVoices.By insisting on the humanity of all the
EMILE HABIBI 93
moral high ground, other parts of Habibi's novels do not allow us to

indulge in moral relativism. Rather, while these questions are being
posed, the attention of reader, writer and character are focused on moral
responsibility and ideal goals. Thus does Habibi duplicate the dialectic
tensions of life for the Palestinian in Israel.
Through language, structure, content and choice of characters, Habibi
deals with the question of identity within the boundaries of moral respon-
sibility and human frailty. As he traverses centuries of culture, and
decades of political struggle in his writing, he beckons us to open the
closets of the past in order to face up to the present and imagine a future.
Memory and imagination are inextricably tied together by the umbilical
cord of daily reality; a reality that will not become clear as long as we deal
with the past,
like a voyeur, who spies from the outside through a tear in the window's
curtain, at a naked sentiment in the private room of a lady..5°
Habibi highlights the tragedy of Palestinians in Israel by faithfully
transmitting their shame and fear of their past. How they have inter-
nalized the suppression of their heritage and culture-carried out by the
State-to the extent of exercising self-censorship, is the tragedy that only
laughter can evoke and reduce at the same time. This, for Habibi, is
where the victim becomes responsible for his or her victimization. This
is where the responsibility of the victim and the actions of the oppressor
intersect, and it is at this intersection that normality must be stopped by
an apparition of the past in the guise of a "super" future. A bolt of
lightning, made of collective awarness of the Arab self in each Palesti-
nian, is what is needed as opposed to waiting for the intervention of a
"Supreme Being," and "the will of God."
Habibi's stories have a sense of immediacy and poignancy because
they are situated in a continuing tragedy lived by Palestinians daily. Yet,
and this is what makes Habibi a more effective and accomplished
novelist, these stories speak of a larger human tragedy and identity crisis.
members of the war-torn society of Lebanon-including the fighters-violence, abhor-

rent as it might be, is rendered sensible and understandable. Even the sniper, the source
of brutal and callously random violence who turns human beings into "rats in a cage",
is still seen as a human being with feelings, fears and doubts. This is not to say that his
actions are excused, or that violence is condoned. Rather, by confronting the war as com-
prehensible from a human and daily perspective, order is enforced even on a society and
situation that have come to epitomize disorder. This act may not stop the war, but it re-
instills a sense of morality and responsibility that have been lost, abandoned or destroyed
by those who actively sit on the sidelines watching those shooting. Writing, then,
becomes a process for reclaiming Lebanese society, its streets, and its people from the
grips of a war gone insane and haphazard.
5o Emile Habibi, Ikh.tayyi,p. 13.
94 EMILEHABIBI
Although Palestinian life provides him with the canvas, and their present
circumstance gives him those highly evocative colors, the humanity and
message of his novels transcend the particular. They speak to the univer-
sal experience of people in continuous struggle with forces trying to
deprive them of their dignity and humanity by turning them into victims,
refugees and prisoners of a cruel present with no sense of the past or hope
for the future. Moreover, Habibi uses this universal truth in order to
stoke the weakening fires of the Arab heritage within Palestinian life.
Finally, by refusing to elevate the characters in his novels above, or
below, the level of the rest of humanity, he opposes the static and orien-
talist images of Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular.
That Habibi uses irony and satire, that he mingles tears with laughter,
presents sorrows with happy memories, and that he laughs as much at
himself and his culture as at that of the "Other"-be it Israeli or
Western-only makes the impact of his writing more powerful and real.
It might seem strange to use the term "real" in describing Habibi's
highly fantastic style and almost dizzying work, but this term becomes
understandable if one approaches it with the same irony that Habibi uses
to approach his world. By "real" I mean the denuded truth that makes
us blush in shame, laugh in embarrassment, and sometimes recoil in hor-
ror. It is a fantastic "real" that erases all the superficialities in which
people tend to immerse themselves deeper and deeper, to arrive at the
basic elements of humanity. It is a "real" that questions what is human
and what is inhuman in society.51Habibi's "real", for all its mirth and
sarcasm, is serious in its respect for people's weaknesses and failures,
even when it urges them to rise to a lofty ideal. In this manner Habibi
starts his books with surreal incidents, fills them with tales of strange
lives, employs an "absurd" language, and carries us along on a One
Thousand and One Night's carpet closer to the essence of truth in life,
language and incident, only to ask of readers and writers: Which way will
you go?
Smith College AKRAMF. KHATER
51 In this regard Habibi's work is similar to that of the American science fiction writer
Phillip K. Dick. While the comparison might seem strange, given the different genres
and the stigma of science fiction as "non-literature", it still holds. For, the purpose of
Philip Dick's work was "to get beyond 'the apparently real' to 'what is really real',"
using things, "aliens, androids and time travel to explore all of that [what's human,
what's inhuman, what's real, and what's fake.]" Richard Bernstein, "The Electric
Dreams of Philip K. Dick", The New YorkTimesBookReview,November 3, 1991.

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Emile Habibi: The Mirror of Irony in Palestinian Literature

Author(s): Akram F. Khater

It is rare to find laughter in the works of modern Arab poets or

This agenda-optimistic but hardly naive or illusory-is one element

Identity and the Absurd

8 Op. cit., pp. 61-62.

10 Op. cit., p. 167.

12 Emile Habibi, Ikh/ayyf,p. 14.

that conclusion we encounter the guilty conscience of the Palestinian pro-

17 Emile Habibi, Ikhtayyi,p. 124.

Language and Identity

A continuous question about meaning, and about...the unknown.

it is an allegory showing how even those Palestinians who remember the

Salid's aunt, mistakinghim for a

By emphasizingthat the Hebrewversionof the Arabic"thankyou" is

32 Emile Habibi, SaCidAbu al-Nahs the Pessoptimist,p. 54.

This cannot be simply the language of the "forefathers." Rather it has

generationthan Habibi, takesa differentapproachtowardschallengingthe hegemony

Habibi resorts to the colloquial. When classical language falters in its

up new-and mostly bizzare-words extends from Joyce to Kurt Von-

4"Just recently, in an article that appeared in Harper'sMagazine(February 1990),

in the honesty and truthfulness-or lack thereof-of the literary work."44

moral high ground, other parts of Habibi's novels do not allow us to

members of the war-torn society of Lebanon-including the fighters-violence, abhor-

Smith College AKRAMF. KHATER

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