Abd Alkareem Al Karmi
Abu Salma (orig. Abd al-Karim al-Karmi) (1909-1980) was a Palestinian poet. Abu Salma was born in 1909 in Haifa. He studied law and worked in Haifa until April 1948 when the Israelis occupied the city. Read more…
Ahmad Harb
Born in Al-Thahiriyyah, near Hebron, in 1951; received a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Jordan, Amman, in 1974, an MA in English Literature from Roosevelt University, USA, in 1979, and a PhD in Comparative and English Literature from the University of Iowa, USA Read more…
Amal Murkus
Amal Murkus is a Palestinian singer. Her post-modern music style has a variety of Mediterranean influences. Her first album, Amal, was released in 1998, and her second, Shauq, in 2004. Read more…
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism. Robert Fisk described him as the Palestinians’ “most powerful political voice.” Read more…
Elias Khoury
Elias Khoury is a Palestinian novelist, playwright, critic and a prominent public intellectual. He has published ten novels, which have been translated into several foreign languages, as well as several works of literary criticism. Read more…
Emile Habibi
Habibi was born in Haifa on Aug. 29, 1922 in today’s Israel, which at that time was part of the British Mandate of Palestine. Born in to a Protestant Palestinian Arab family (his family had originally been Arab Orthodox but converted to Protestantism due to disputes within the Orthodox church) Read more…
Fadwa Touqan
Fadwa Touqan was well-known for her representations of resistance to Israeli occupation in contemporary Arab poetry. Touqan’s poetry is known for her distinctive chronicling of the suffering of her people, the Palestinian, particularly those living under Israeli occupation. Read more…
Farah Bseiso
Farah Bseiso is a well-known actress in Arab TV networks. She was born in Kuwait, and began his career in Syria. She graduated from the Institute of Performing Arts and participated in several Syrian series. Read more…
Ghassan Kanafani
Ghassan Fayiz Kanafani was born in 1936 in the then Acre (Akka), British Mandate of Palestine. His father was a lawyer, and sent Ghassan to French missionary school in Jaffa. Read more…
Hind Al Husseini
Born in Jerusalem in 1916 cousin of Abdel Qader Al-Husseini, she was involved with the student unions in the 1930s and took courses in social work and worked as a educator. Read more…
Ibrahim Touqan
Ibrahim Abd al-Fattah Touqan was a Palestinian nationalist poet whose works rallied Arabs during their revolt against the British. Touqan was born in Nablus, Palestine during Ottoman times. Read more…
Ihsan Abbass
Born in Ein Ghazal near Haifa on 2 Dec. 1920; completed high school in Haifa and Acre, then attended four years at the Arab College in Jerusalem (1937-41); worked as a teacher at Safad College from 1941-46; received a BA in Arabic Literature from Cairo University in 1950; taught at private schools in Cairo. Read more…
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
Palestinian author of Syriac-Orthodox origin born in Bethlehem at the time of the British Mandate. Educated in Jerusalem and, later, at Cambridge University, he settled in Iraq following the events of 1948. Read more…
Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish (Arabic: محمود درويش) (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. Read more…
Mohammad Bakri
During Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, the Israeli Defense Forces invaded a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin. Nine percent of the camp was leveled and over 50 people were killed. Read more…
Muin Bseiso
He was a Palestinian poet who lived in Egypt, where he first entered the world of poetry. He finished his primary and secondary education in Gaza in 1948. Read more…
Naji Al-Ali
In 1959 Naji al-Ali returned to Lebanon, and that year he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), but was expelled four times within one year for lack of party discipline. Read more…
Samia A. Halaby
Born in Jerusalem on 12 Dec. 1936; during the 1948 Nakba, her family was displaced to Beirut, from where the family emigrated to the USA. Read more…
Tawfeeq Zayyad
Born in the Galilee, Ziad studied literature in Russia. After returning home, he was elected mayor of Nazareth on 9 December 1973, as head of Rakah, a communist party, a victory that is said to have “surprised and alarmed” Israelis. Read more…
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , (24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. Read more…