The Little Lantern
| Author | Ghassan Kanafani |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | |
| Country | Beirut |
| Language | Arabic |
| Published | 2005 |
| Pages | 71 |
The Little Lantern is a children’s short story by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani,[1] as it is the first work for children written and illustrated by him, which turned this story into a theatrical work.[2]
Dedication
Kanafani dedicated the story to his niece Lamis Hussein Najm, born on January 12, 1955, who was killed with him by the bomb that blew up his car on July 8, 1972.[3]
Story Events
It is a story about a princess and her father who ruled the country and dies, leaving the princess and his only bequest. He told her “To become a queen, you must carry the sun to the palace”, and the second says “If you can’t carry the sun to the palace, you will spend your life in a wooden box closed as a punishment”. However, everyone was unable to help her; some of them decided that she was crazy for trying the impossible, and some said that she was wise. As an old man tries to enter the palace, but is being prevented by the guards. His insistence on entering and raising his voice to be heard by the princess. “If an old man can’t enter her palace, how does the princess aspire to enter the sun into the palace?” the old man says to the guards. The princess tries to call him, but he disappears. The child calls the guard commander and asks him about the old man and is told that he is an old man who comes every evening carrying a small lantern. The old man didn’t return yet, the princess is still waiting for him, but she found a paper tucked under the door that says that sadness and crying do not solve problems. So she decided to solve the problem as she asked the commander to bring every man carrying a lantern to the palace. In the evening the soldiers went out to bring every man carrying a lantern, and the princess was surprised when she saw thousands of men from all sides carrying lanterns and coming towards the palace. She ordered the guards to widen the doors and demolish the walls so that everyone could enter. Next, the old man said to her, can you carry all these lanterns alone? She answered “No” then, he said “So is the sun, no one man or one woman can carry it.” The princess said that these lanterns are the sun that my father intended. “Yes”, the old man replied. In the morning, when the sun rose, the princess saw the sunlight entering into the palace through the window, because of the demolished walls and doors that were blocking the sunlight.[4]
Reference
- ↑ "القنديل الصغير". Goodreads. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
- ↑ الاتحاد, صحيفة (2009-02-11). "القنديل الصغير لتوجيه الطفل نحو الحرية والتنوير". صحيفة الاتحاد (in العربية). Retrieved 2022-06-08.
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20191212170344/https://www.alaraby.co.uk/miscellaneous/2014/5/15/حين-أطلق-غسان-كنفاني-الشمس-من-قنديل-صغير. Archived from the original on 2019-12-12. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ "جريدة الحياة". 2019-11-21. Archived from the original on 2019-11-21. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
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