Novel
The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
الوقائع الغريبة في اختفاء سعيد أبي النحس المتشائل
Emile Habibi · 1974
Synopsis
Saeed writes to an unknown correspondent that he has been taken in by beings from outer space, and it is from up there that he tells his life. Having secretly returned after 1948 to the country that has become Israel, on the trail of a father who was already collaborating, he becomes an informer in order to survive, which does not spare him prison. His letters follow his loves, Yuaad, who is supposed to return, and Baqiyya, the one who stayed, and his very name blends the optimist and the pessimist.
Context
Habibi left the Knesset in 1972 to write this novel, his first, although he had been publishing short stories since 1954. The book consists of three parts, each titled with a proper name, and of letters addressed to a journalist. The characters' names have a meaning, Saeed means happy, and the word in the title, which joins pessimist and optimist, echoes Voltaire's Candide. Jean-Patrick Guillaume translated it into French for Gallimard in 1987.
Who it is for
A short novel of constant irony, made up of letters and wordplay; the notes in the translation help.
Prizes and reception
Ranked sixth among the best Arabic novels of the twentieth century by the Arab Writers Union.
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