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Imīl Ḥabībī

The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist (Interlink World Fiction Series) Paperback – January 1, 2001

by Emile Habiby (Author), Trevor Le Gassick (Author), Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Translator)

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This contemporary classic, the story of a Palestinian who becomes a citizen of Israel, combines fact and fantasy, tragedy and comedy. Saeed is the comic hero, the luckless fool, whose tale tells of aggression and resistance, terror and heroism, reason and loyalty that typify the hardships and struggles of Arabs in Israel. An informer for the Zionist state, his stupidity, candor, and cowardice make him more of a victim than a villain; but in a series of tragicomic episodes, he is gradually transformed from a disaster-haunted, gullible collaborator into a Palestinian—no hero still, but a simple man intent on survival and, perhaps, happiness. The author’s own anger and sorrow at Palestine’s tragedy and his acquaintance with the absurdities of Israeli politics (he was once a member of Israel’s parliament himself) are here transmuted into satire both biting and funny. Translated by Anton Shammas into Hebrew, The Secret Life of Saeed won Israel’s foremost Prize for Literature; a stage version played to great acclaim for a decade.

Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Interlink Books
Publication date

January 1, 2001
Dimensions

5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1566564158
ISBN-13

978-1566564151
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

With everyone paying more attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the wake of recent events, Habiby's novel about a Palestinian man, Saeed, who remains in Israel after its creation and becomes an informer for the state, is sure to attract attention. Written in 1974 but appearing for the first time in the U.S., the tale is told in the form of letters written to an unnamed correspondent after Saeed has escaped to outer space with the help of an extraterrestrial friend. Saeed's experiences are both comic and tragic, triumphant and defeated. He tries to gain favor by being the best informant, but his bad luck and dim wit guarantee his failure; his life is lived in constant fear, yet he is never without hope. Habiby's blending of fantasy and reality intentionally obscures our sense of what is real and what is not, but it heightens our awareness of the complexity of the political conflict in the Middle East. As an Arab in Israel (and one-time member of the Israeli Parliament), Habiby has strong views on the conflict, but even readers who disagree with him will find this strange novel to be thought-provoking on a number of levels. Helpful translators' notes serve as a primer on Middle Eastern history and culture. Beth Warrell
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"In Arabic Habiby had no precursors, and has had no successors- acknowledging his debt to Voltaire and Swift, he has proved inimitable."

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Interlink Books; first edition (January 1, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1566564158
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1566564151
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.5 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #287,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19,400 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
25 ratings

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5 star		72%
4 star		8%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
2 star		11%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Henry Prosa

Boring

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2021

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This book was very boring. I got tired of the whole whimsical destiny of the character after like 6 chapters.

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rmarflir2013

Probably my favorite book about Israel/Palestine

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2012

Verified Purchase

Emile Habiby invented a new genre of Arab literature when he wrote this book. Instead of convincing the reader of Palestinian suffering through accusatory statements, shockingly violent imagery, or political rhetoric, he uses an unreliable idiot, who happens to be a Palestinian citizen of Israel, an informer, and a pretty pathetic character, to tell the story of Palestinian collective memory and current realities through satire, sarcasm, and seemingly stupid, yet really witty narration. This book is amazing!

5 people found this helpful

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Manny

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2016

Verified Purchase

Good for my HS daughter

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Gramagain

Excellent read for those seeking "the other side" of the ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2014

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Excellent read for those seeking "the other side" of the Israeli/Palestinian debacle. Written in 1974, these words are equally meaningful today.

2 people found this helpful

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thomas e.

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2015

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Quality book in fine condition delivered in a timely way. Thanks.

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2013

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I was dissapointed with this book--the story line was hard to follow--someone had left written notes with a pen in this bok

Helpful

D. Cloyce Smith

A world unchanged since Voltaire's day

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2008

As its subtitle implies, "The Secret Life of Saeed" blends optimism and pessimism, tragedy and comedy, horror and farce, cynicism and gullibility. A Palestinian in occupied territory, Saeed has lived through both wars (1948 and 1967); although he is an informer on the payroll of the Israeli government, he's too stupid to be of any real threat to his own people, but he is equally unable to protect his own family. As Salma Khadra Jayyusi notes in the introduction, Saeed is caught between "the extreme poles of Zionist colonialism and Palestinian resistance."

Saeed is able to relate his tale only when he is rescued by an extraterrestrial being (perhaps the Reaper himself) who removes him physically from the absurdities in which he is trapped. In each part of the subsequent autobiographical account, he relates a different loss--of his first love, of his wife and son, of the daughter of his first love--each under different circumstances that are identical in their irrationality. A coward himself, comically useless to his superiors, he is surrounded by rebels. But, once freed from earthly shackles, he can unsparingly ridicule his oppressors, and his tale mocks both Arab oligarchies and Israeli officials.

Habiby's novel owes much to Voltaire, as he makes clear in both the book's title and in a chapter called "The Amazing Similarity between Candide and Saeed." When his extraterrestrial savior points out the resemblance, Saeed responds, "Don't blame me for that. Blame our way of life that hasn't changed since Voltaire's day," and he draws parallels between Pangloss and Israeli dignitaries and between Candide's experiences and recent Palestinian history. The difference, of course, is that Candide always concluded that "All is well in the world," while Saeed the pessoptimist is not so sure.

Habiby's wit is most palatable when it is barbed, and his story is most powerful when it is tragic. The farce tends to silliness, however, occasionally threatening to undercut the satire. (To be frank, I have never been able to appreciate the slapstick follies in Voltaire's novel, either.) There's no doubt that much of the book's wit and wordplay is lost in the translation between languages and cultures; without the translators' pages of notes, I would have been lost. Nevertheless, the novel will surprise you with its most powerful scenes, especially when Saeed meets his battered namesake in prison and the ambiguous, tragic, climactic episode depicting the fate of his son and wife, an event that manages to be both melancholy and glorious. Such passages remind the reader that Saeed (as well as his fellow Palestinians) can hardly hope to be in control of the world in which he lives; although unchained, he remains "a prisoner unable to escape."

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

lvkleydorff

The Victor and the Vanquished

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2002

Saeed, the narrator of the story, belongs to the large family of Pessoptimists. He can feel like a pessimist, or like an optimist, but can never tell the two apart. Saeed is an Arab. When Israel conquered part of Palestine, he did not flee but stayed behind to become an Israeli citizen. That did not help him much - Arab remains Arab.
The book is a humorous allegory, wrapped around everyday Arab life, with a bitter nucleus of Israeli oppression. Like Voltaire?s Candide, Saeed believes that this is the best of all worlds. To him it seems quite natural that the occupying forces arrest people in the middle of the night for no reason, that they deport them, that they blow up houses, and that they devastate whole villages. After all, they won the war, and everything - and everybody - now belongs to them. There are those Arabs who want to retaliate immediately. But they are told that the tree is not loved for its flowers, but for its fruit. After all, it took them close to two hundred years to throw out the crusaders. Saeed is the simple soul who sees what goes on around him, but cannot understand why it is so. The bitterness comes with the explanation.
Mr. Habiby wrote a devastating satire. His own life paralleled that of Saeed: he was an Arab in Israel, even a member of the Israeli parliament. He wrote this book almost 30 years ago. It is still valid.

22 people found this helpful

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