The Secret Life of Saeed, the Ill-Fated Pessoptimist

A Palestinian Who Became a Citizen of Israel

By: Emile Habiby

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

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 the 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.

©1974, 1985 by Emile Habiby. Translation © 1974, 1985 by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Trevor Le Gassick (P)2022 by Blackstone Publishing