The Secret Life of Saeed: the Pessoptimist (1974) is a masterwork of tragicomedic narrative by Palestinian writer, poet and politician Emile Habibi (1922-1996). It is a monumental expression of Palestinian self-hood, in particular for the Palestinians who made lives under occupation in the decades following the Nakba and and the creation of the state of Israel.
The Secret Life of Saeed reads as a feverish, impassioned eruption of rage and affirmation for the impossible contradictions that defined Arab life in Israel. It follows the misadventures of Saeed, a man who returned to his home city of Haifa from a brief exile during the Nakba. His only opportunity to survive is to become a collaborator with the Israeli state. The narrative unfolds as a series of brief episodes in Saeed’s life.
Habibi himself was elected to the Israeli Parliament as a member of the Israeli Communist party, a role that, according to Habibi, contained all the contradictions embodied by Saeed the character. Many of the episodes in the novel are events Habibi himself experienced as a young man. The social history of these decades are illuminated with grave clarity by Adel Manna’s in Nakba and Survival. We relied extensively on this supplemental text to understand Habibi and Saeed.
Nakba and Survival, Adel Manna: https://luminosoa.org/books/144/files/f10b8467-2730-4c5e-99cd-c9d97027ca0c.pdf
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