SAYED KASHUA (1975–), Israeli Arab journalist, satirist, novelist, and producer of the popular sitcom Arab Labor (Avodah Aravit [slang for “Cheap Arab Labor”], 2007–14), left Israel with his family in 2014 and presently resides in the United States. After the hopelessness and cynicism that characterized his novels Dancing Arabs (2002) and Let It Be Morning (2006), his most recent novel, Second Person Singular (2010), seemed to convey a more optimistic message and has been turned into a sentimental, Hollywood-type movie, Dancing Arabs (2014; also released as A Borrowed Identity). In both film and novel a young Israeli Arab undergoes an incredible metamorphosis into a Jew. The novel received Israel's prestigious Bernstein Prize for its “fascinating and satirical look at Israeliness and especially the Arab-Israeli mind, a topic that has barely been reflected in Hebrew literature,” and for offering “a complex and challenging look at Israeli society as a multicultural society.” Like Kashua's previous works, however, this novel's “complex and challenging look” also points to a lack of tolerance and respect for cultural diversity in a multicultural Israel.

All of Kashua's Israeli Arab protagonists struggle for acceptance but fail to receive it from Israeli society. Kafkaesque metamorphoses are everywhere in his work. Both Franz Kafka and Sayed Kashua use the metamorphosis metaphor to depict identity problems that are caused by the protagonists’ unsuccessful attempts to be accepted by the dominant culture. Only one protagonist in Kafka's writings seems to have achieved this virtually impossible goal: the ape Rotpeter, who, like Kashua in real life, is honored and recognized by an educational institution for his achievement. And only one of Kashua's characters seems to have a future: Amir in Second Person Singular, who undergoes the miraculous metamorphosis into a Jew. Yet Kafka's satire exposes Rotpeter's life as a tragedy, and it is questionable whether Amir's rebirth can possibly signal a new beginning.