Men in the Sun

Three Palestinian refugees of different generations, the old Abu Qais, the bitter young Assad and the boy Marwan, gather in Basra and pay a driver, Abul Khaizuran, to smuggle them into oil-rich Kuwait hidden in the empty water tank of his lorry. Kanafani's route is real and merciless: the smugglers' quarter of Basra, the desert road south, the border at Safwan, and Kuwait just beyond, where the men bake to death in the tank during a fatal delay at the checkpoint.

Abu Qais

Basra (the smugglers' quarter)

Chapter 1

In the heat and squalor of Basra, each man arrives from the Palestinian camps with the same hope of reaching wealthy Kuwait and sending money home. The old Abu Qais, remembering the olive trees he lost in 1948, is the first of the three the book follows to the fatal bargain with the driver.

Chapters 1-3

explicit The three men come to Basra, the real southern Iraqi port city, and haggle in its back streets for passage to Kuwait; the city is where the smuggling arrangements are made.

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