Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish was the most acclaimed poet in the Arab world and widely considered to be on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize. His poetry is an indisputable testimony to the catastrophe of the Palestinian people. Over the last twenty years, especially since the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, his poetry came to embrace exile as a universal human emotion. Darwish published his first book of poetry in 1964, at the age of 22. During his lifetime, he published more than thirty books of poetry and prose, which have been translated into 35 languages. His twenty books of poetry include The Adam of Two Edens, Mural, A Bed of Stranger, Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?, Diwan, and Eleven Planets. A former member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Executive Council, and the Poet Laureate of Palestine, he helped draft the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence. He resigned over the Oslo Accords in 1993. Darwish died in August 2008 following heart surgery. He was buried in the West Bank City of Ramallah and granted a state funeral.