HANDALA LW

“Dear reader, allow me to introduce myself: my name is Handala. My mother’s name is Nakba, and my sister’s name is Fatima. My shoe size: I do not know, because I am always barefoot. My nationality: I am not Palestinian, not Kuwaiti, not Lebanese, not Egyptian. Yours truly is simply an Arab human being.”

Naji al-Ali introduced Handala with these words in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa in 1969. Displaced from Palestine in 1948, al-Ali grew up in Ayn al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon. Handala became his Palestinian refugee child beyond fixed nationality, forever ten years old, the age al-Ali was when he was forced from Palestine. From 1973, Handala was most often drawn with his back to the viewer and his hands clasped behind him, rejecting the political settlements and outside solutions being imposed on Palestinians.