Born on March 13, 1942 (Birwa, Palestine)

Poet
Editor

Few poets in modern history have meant as much to their people as Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. In hundreds of poems published over the course of nearly fifty years, Darwish has given voice to the deep regret and anger felt by Palestinians living both inside and outside the borders of Israel and its occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Darwish is something of a hero among supporters of the Palestinian cause throughout the Arab world; he is greeted with large and adoring crowds wherever he appears to read his poems. In the introduction to Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, a collection of poems translated into English and published in 2003, Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché wrote that Darwish "is the poet laureate of Palestine—a poet sharing the fate of his people, living in a town under siege, while providing them with a...