Habibi, Emile

▪ 1997

      Israeli Arab writer (b. Aug. 29, 1922, Haifa, Palestine [now in Israel]—d. May 2, 1996, Nazareth, Israel), became one of the most popular authors in the Middle East as a result of works depicting the conflicts in loyalties experienced by Palestinians living as an Arab minority in the Jewish state of Israel. In such works as Strange Events in the Disappearance of Said Abu al-Nahs al-Mutashael (1974), the most notable of his seven novels, he explored the duality of those Arabs who, like himself, did not leave their homeland during the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war; in his will he asked that his tombstone include the phrase "remained in Haifa." Habibi became a communist in the early 1940s and helped found the Communist Party of Israel. He served (1952-72) as a Communist member of the Knesset (parliament) and for over 30 years as editor of the party's newspaper, but he left the party in 1991 after his fellow members would not accept Soviet Pres. Mikhail Gorbachev's liberal ideas. Habibi began writing fiction in the 1970s and created plays and short stories in addition to his novels. He was committed to nonviolence and peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews. In 1990 the Palestine Liberation Organization presented Habibi with the Jerusalem Medal, its highest literary prize. Two years later when he became the first Arab to win Israel's top cultural award, the Israel Prize, Habibi was criticized by some Arab intellectuals, but he was convinced the award could help promote peace.

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