Enemy of the Sun

Poetry of Palestinian Resistance

edited by Edmund Ghareeb and Naseer Aruri

A collection of Palestinian poetry originally published in 1970 that resonates with liberation and civil rights struggles around the world.

This updated edition for the current generation of activists features new poems translated by Edmund Ghareeb, an internationally recognized Lebanese-American scholar, and a new foreword by Dr. Greg Thomas.

In 1971, in the wake of George Jackson’s killing by San Quentin prison guards, a poem entitled “Enemy of the Sun” was found among ninety-nine books in the revolutionary’s cell. The handwritten poem came to be circulated in Black Panther newspapers under Jackson’s name, assumed to be a vestige of his more than a decade long incarceration. But Jackson never wrote the poem; it was authored by the Palestinian poet Sameeh Al-Qassem and had been included in an anthology of the same title a year before Jackson’s death.

Originally published by Drum & Spear, the publishing arm of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Enemy of the Sun: Poetry of Palestinian Resistance links twelve poets working in a poetics of refusal and of hope. Bearing witness to decades of Zionist occupation, to a diaspora exiled in refugee camps and writers held captive in Israeli jails, the collection offers a means to an end: “as poetry, yes it sings—as bullets on a mission; it calls for change.”

In each poem is a whole life—joy, love, beauty, rage, sorrow, suffering—and in each life is a record of resistance: the traces of a people who refuse to leave their homeland, who time and again alchemize grief into principled struggle. In the intertwined histories of this book, and in the unyielding political edge of the poems themselves, is a long story of solidarity between oppressed peoples: from Palestine to South Africa to Algeria to Vietnam to the United States.

Collected in

New and Forthcoming Books from Seven Stories Press

Buying options

Available for pre-order. This item will be available on May 6, 2025.

Paperback

$17.06

$18.95

Publish Date: 2025-05-06

ISBN: 9781644214558

Pages: 208

Forthcoming

Ebook

Publish Date: 2025-03-25

ISBN: 9781644214565

Pages: 208

“From the moment Enemy of the Sun came into my life many years ago, as a tattered, well-worn book passed down from one radical organizer to the next, it reframed my ideas on what resistance writing could be, or could look like. These poems are overflowing with resilience and a power rooted in opposition, but there is also immense beauty. A celebration of that which some would consider quotidian, but that which we must understand as not small, not unworthy. These are poems of survival and survivors, and they are not only teeming with sorrow and rage, they are also, thankfully, teeming with life.”

– Hanif Abdurraqib, author of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us and There's Always This Year

“The revitalization of this critical anthology reintroduces readers to powerful voices that have shaped Palestinian resistance literature. Rooted in defiance, refusal, and the pursuit of liberation in the face of ongoing occupation, these poems are essential reading for anyone seeking to engage with the global struggle for justice and the rights of oppressed peoples everywhere.”

– Noor Hindi, author of Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.

“With a generous new preface by Greg Thomas that situates this project’s disappearance out of print within ongoing imperial backlash against Black and Palestinian radical artistic traditions, this restored edition returns us to a north star that has guided contemporary liberation-oriented poetics for many years. As Palestinians face one of our darkest moments in history, with escalating Zionist-US genocide, this book returns to us, honoring Aruri and Ghareeb’s labor alongside our great writers like Fadwa Touqan, Rashed Hussein, and Sameeh Al-Qassem, whose words have taught us life. There has never been a more urgent need for a book like Enemy of the Sun.”

– George Abraham, executive editor at Mizna and author of Birthright

“This book is a treasure. Much like the desired object of fabled seafarers, this precious trove has been unearthed and repackaged for our intellectual and spiritual enrichment. Its contents bridge the past and the present, blurring the space of time with the constant thirst for freedom. The poets’ stanzas, sharp like knives, command us to stand tall, to revere the land, to look one another in the eye, speak plainly, and to resist like our lives depend on it. Each poem an opportunity to transform and a multitude of poems to change the world.”

– Noura Erakat, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine and professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick

EDMUND GHAREEB is of Lebanese origin and has traveled widely throughout the Middle East. He earned a degree in political science and history from American International College and an MA and PhD from Georgetown University, before teaching as a professor at American University, University of Virginia, and George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He was the editor of Dialog, the graduate journal of the latter university as well as a frequent interviewer of Arab liberation leaders who visit the United States. He lives in Washington DC.