Abstract: The return to Palestine is considered consubstantial with forced exile and constitutes the central idea around which Kanafānī constructs his novel Riǧālfī al-šams. A comparative study of his novelistic work and its cinematographic adaptation shows us how each of these media exploits its own means of expression in order to symbolise the return; a return which remains, for the moment, unrealisable but which is materialised through memory, nostalgia, and souvenir.
