Some may wonder why it took so long for anyone to show an interest in publishing the Spanish translation of In Search of Walid Masoud, the novel the Union of Arab Writers named the best Palestinian and the second-best Arab novel of all times in the list they compiled in 2010 of the 100 best Arab novels, more so, given, on the one hand, the amount of ink that has been spilled in an attempt to put the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into words, which has now spanned for over three-quarters of a century and has recently come back into the spotlight, and the modern day fondness for lists, on the other.
I’d argue the explanation lies partly in the very nature of the work, whose title may already give us a clue: the one born happy and blessed has gone missing. Because Jabra’s Walid Masoud is no longer just the defenseless child from the refugee camp who could have been featured on the cover of National Geographic, he is also the vulture that patiently waits in the background to jump on its prey. Perhaps it is precisely there where the author’s genius lies: in having recognised that it’s not the Israeli who constitute the Palestinian people’s greatest enemy, regardless of how eager they may seem to fill in the spot, but the cost of relinquishing the warm feeling of being targeted.