To all my students who met her and loved her, I am sad to report that Lebanese-Palestinian-American writer, Fay Afaf Kanafani died the other day. I first met Afaf maybe around late 1990s, when I still lived in Berkeley. She called me one day, and asked me to speak about Palestine to a group of Arab and Jewish women who met in San Francisco and discussed foreign policy. We chatted on the phone and she sounded very young. She then asked me to pick her up at her place in Oakland, and then we would go together to San Francisco. I was astonished when she answered the door, as she looked so much older than what she sounded on the phone: and I realized that her group was a group of retired older women. As soon as I met her in person, she asked me if I knew of a Professor Kanafani at UC, Berkeley, who taught in the engineering department. I said that I did not know him but that I have heard negative things about him: that he would refuse to speak Arabic with Arab students and would tell them: we are in America, and we have to speak English. She said: oh, that is my son. Tactless me, as usual. I addressed her group and we talked about her experience living in Lebanon and working in the administration of Lebanese University (Lebanon is so small, that I later discovered that she worked with my cousin Shadya Alayli). Afaf called me often and invited me to eat Lebanese food, but I never went. But she did show me the pictures of her late husband, Fu'ad (her second husband, the love of her life). She then invited me to her book party at UC, Berkeley when her book, Nadia: Captive of Hope was released. She also established a scholarship fund for women working on Middle East women topics. I went and saw her being very happy, and she introduced me to two of her three sons. Her granddaughter was present and she read excerpts of the book. I never saw Afaf more happy. I read the book and contents and the ending (especially the part about the horrific experience that she and her (second) husband were subjected to in Lebanon during the war) distressed me a great deal. I called her in tears that night, and she comforted me, telling me that she was OK, now and that she never let what she went through to influence her or to derail her life plans. The book was rather original but very painful (to read and to write--I am sure): it was the first book by an Arab who talked candidly about being sexually molested by her father, and the sexual assaults that maids at the home were subjected to by her father and brother. She also spoke about physical and sexual abuse at the hand of her first husband, when she lived in Palestine. Her family married her off in the 1930s, and she moved to Palestine with her new (terrible) husband. Her experience in Palestine and witnessing An-Nakbah made her a lifelong activist for Palestine. The book was very moving and I added it to the list of books of 1st person narratives in my Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East class. And then--I forgot who: a student suggested that we invite her to class to a potluck and discuss her book with her. A student volunteered to pick her up from Oakland and there began a tradition in my Gender class: that Afaf would be invited to a potluck in my class to discuss her book (Valerie Marleau was one of her volunteer drivers one year, and she promised me to provide her with bathroom breaks during the long trip to Oakland). It happened every semester, or every year when the Gender class was being offered annually and not every semester. She was so lively and had such charm, and she always dressed (very Lebanese) very elegantly to those events. Students always observed that I was always protective of her during those meetings, and that I tried to shield her from tough questions. I was always happy to see her, and students often stayed for hours with her to talk about her life. She was so positive about life and about the future. She told us that her sons (especially two of the three) were furious with her about the book, and that none were happy about it. But two stopped talking to her. But she was not in any way feeling guilty about that: she knew that she did not do anything wrong and that it was their problem, not hers. Her visits to my class ended only five years ago: she told me bluntly: I am too old now to make that trip. She also would tell me about her computer art work which she got into. She was 99: I wished that lived to be 100 and more. Over the years, I became more critical of the book, from a gender and class perspective. She once saw me at a conference (where she met dear friend Lama Dajani who was thrilled to meet her, and I did not know that Lama had read her book and was deeply moved by it). Afaf pressed me if there was anything I did not like about the book, and I only gave her one example, and we discussed that. Many students of mine here on Facebook have met her and got to like her.
PS Jenn-Jarred Neal took this picture us back in 2004, in one of those potlucks).
