Khalīl Baydas (1874/5-1949) is the foremost Palestinian intellectual to have documented the emergence and development of Palestinian narrative fiction and culture beginning in the late nineteenth century. His biography can be divided into four major periods: his childhood in Nazareth (1874-93); a period spent in Syria and Lebanon (1893-1908), where he served as the principal of several elementary schools established by the Russians; his career in Haifa and Jerusalem (1908-48); and his latter days in Amman and in Beirut (1948-9), where he died in