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Amany Al-Sayyed on Her Father’s Lost—And Found—Novels

Recently, the American University of Beirut unearthed and archived three novels by the late Palestinian author Hussein Al-Sayyed, all three originally been published by Dar al-Hayat.

These newly archived novels are part of an indigenous Palestinian restoration project to archive histories of Palestinians, via the the novel, as a “letter” from the past to the future. The novels are digitized and available to the public via AUB libraries.

To accompany a review of Hussein Al-Sayyed’s We Had Days (“A Look Back: Hussein Al Sayyed’s ‘We Had Days‘”), Amany Al-Sayyed talks about her late father and his novels.

Can you introduce us to your father as a writer? 

Amany Al-Sayyed: Hussein Al-Sayyed arrived poetically to Palestine , born by the blue sea  of Acre/Akka in 1936. During the Nakba of 1948, he was displaced away from home  along with his family to the refugee camps of Ein El Helwe and Rashidiyye in the south of Lebanon. Legend has it that he played soccer with cartoonist Naji El Ali, studied under the dim streetlights for exams and gave public speeches to the camp youth.

He grew up fast, like many Palestinian children, moving all around Lebanon for job opportunities. This complex life drove him into spaces of language and literature. He worked as Arabic literature teacher in Choueifat school for girls. He then migrated to West Africa with a scholarship in radio broadcasting. He used this degree to tell stories on the global south, both in Ghana and in Malta where he lived, telling the news of Palestine, Lebanon and the region over the waves for years. We found some of these recordings on old tape cassettes.

Expression, narration and composition are his craft, including writing poetry  on topics like exile and displacement. He read his poems on radio. It’s interesting how before his migration into the diaspora, he was already a published writer in Lebanon.

From Beirut’s publishing houses, we unearthed three novels: كانت لنا أيام/We Had Days, a story about a Swedish soldier working in the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) serving between Jordan, the Sinai desert and the occupied Palestinian territories. The palimpsest of stories about a Palestinian friend named Saeed earns the protagonist a life changing experience. The second novel is titled دعني أعترف/Let Me Confess, a story about a young woman  in Beirut’s prison accused of honor killings. She confides in the male author to tell her story to the world. The final novel is titled  لولا القدر/Were it Not for Destiny, a story about family and hidden memory in our body. Therefore, Hussein Al-Sayyed’s writings move across novels, reportage, poetry and fiction.

What was his place in the literary landscape, how would you describe his literary milieu? 

AS: Based on manuscripts of his radio broadcasting that we unearthed, plus photos, I’d speculate that his milieu was middle to upper class politicians, journalists and writers in Lebanon, the camps, then Africa and Malta. For example, his best friend who often visited my childhood house was the ambassador of Palestine in Algeria. The political events he covered  include President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt as seen in the photograph above. Transcripts of his interviews for radio in Malta include a sit-down with founder of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party Abdallah Saade who was visiting Malta and was interviewed by my father. But as a radio broadcaster, regular folks wrote him letters, people whose voices were unheard, reached out to him to tell their stories, as my mother noted when I asked her.

How did you come to understand him as a writer?

AS: I continue to arrive to the shore of his writing. Each day offers a new understanding.. Living in Lebanon makes a big difference. For example, the ongoing threat of war in Lebanon today, the negotiations, the promises of ceasefire, the visits from politicians to the region, the displacements, these are all dissected and expressed in his imaginary  from 1960. Even his radio reportage, when I read the transcripts and listen to the tapes, I feel he’s describing life today in Lebanon.. It’s a gift from history that keeps emerging. I understand my father as a writer of historical fiction, and a writer of love letters to  Palestinians and Palestine.

What do we know about the novels’ reception at the time? Do you have a favorite?

AS: What we know about their reception at the time is very little.

I do have a favorite, We Had Days. I’ll tell you something funny about Schneider, the European army official. At first, I misread him as a German Jew. I was so convinced of this. Nisreen the reviewer messages me and says, “He’s not German, nor Jewish.” I was shocked, laughed it off then realized that Schneider uses sweeping language that universalizes the local. For instance, the words “our country” are used when speaking to his friend Edward about the country of “the Arabs.” Sweeping terms that generalize the entire world as “us vs them” or “our country vs this country” to somehow — for me — refer to whole continents and ethnicities. This vibe in the writing style had me perceive of Schneider as non-Arab and therefore Jewish, as if the whole world was Palestine or Israel respectively. I say all this to say, as a reader my way of misreading is so interesting to me. This process was mirrored back to me mostly with this book, which is why it’s my favorite.

Who do you imagine as a new audience for these books? 

AS: My ex-students who graduated from the American University of Beirut now living abroad, some in exile, working their way into life as Palestinians or refugees or displaced Lebanese. Also current students of writing  looking into AI and futuristic technology inspired by human-centered history. Also, artists interested in adapting  the novels.

How will people beyond the scholarly community find out about them?

AS: From online buzz.

Do you have some idea of how many other works have been recovered through the project, and what methods they are using?

AS: I don’t know for sure. What is interesting are the random encounters I have with strangers who knew him in the past, coming along with their version of Hussein Al-Sayyed.

You can read We Had Days as a PDF here.