Mahmoud Darwish

@Political Activists, Timeline and Childhood

Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and one of the leading artists of the Arab world who gave voice to the struggles of his people

Mar 13, 1941

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Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: March 13, 1941
  • Died on: August 9, 2008
  • Nationality: Palestinian
  • Famous: Activists, Political Activists, Poets
  • Known as: Maḥmūd Darwīsh
  • Universities:
    • Moscow State University
  • Birth Place: Al-Birwa

Mahmoud Darwish born at

Al-Birwa

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Birth Place

Mahmoud Darwish was first married to Rana Kabbani, a writer, whom he later divorced. Later, in the mid-1980s, he married Hayat Heeni, an Egyptian translator. He had no children from either marriage.

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Personal Life

He had a history of heart problems and suffered a cardiac arrest in 1984. He underwent two heart operations, in 1984 and 1998.

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Personal Life

Mahmoud Darwish died on August 9, 2008, three days after yet another heart surgery in Houston, Texas. He was 67 years old. His body was buried at Ramallah's Palace of Culture.

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Personal Life

Mahmoud Darwish was born on March 13, 1941, in the village of al-Birwa in the Western Galilee, to Salim, and his wife, Houreyyah Darwish. He was the second of the eight children of his parents.

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Childhood & Early Life

In 1948, his family fled to Lebanon after Israeli forces assaulted his village of al-Birwa. A year later, the family returned to the Acre area, which was now part of Israel, and settled in Deir al-Asad.

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Childhood & Early Life

He received his early education from a high school in Kafr Yasif, two kilometers north of Jadeidi, and later moved to Haifa.

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Childhood & Early Life

At the age of 19, he published his first book of poetry, ‘Asafir bila ajniha’ or ‘Wingless Birds’. Initially, he published his poems in ‘Al Jadid’, the literary periodical of the Israeli Communist Party, later serving as its editor.

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Childhood & Early Life

Mahmoud Darwish became an assistant editor of ‘Al Fajr’, a literary periodical published by the Israeli Workers Party. During the 1960s he was a member of Rakah, the Israeli communist party, and later joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut.

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Career

In 1970, he left Israel to study in the USSR. He studied at the University of Moscow for one year before moving to Egypt and Lebanon.

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Career

In 1971, he moved to Cairo where he worked for ‘al-Ahram’, a daily newspaper.

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Career

In 1973, he edited the monthly ‘Shu'un Filistiniyya’ in Beirut and worked as director in the Palestinian Research Center of the PLO. When he joined the PLO, he was banned from reentering Israel.

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Career

During the difficult times of the Lebanon War, he wrote political poems such as ‘Qasidat Bayrut’ (1982) and ‘Madih al-zill al'ali’ (1983).

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Career

In 1998, Mahmoud Darwish published his first collection of love poems titled ‘Sareer el Ghariba (Bed of the Stranger)’.

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Major Works

In 2000, Mahmoud Darwish published ‘Jidariyya’ (Mural), a book about his near death experience. It depicts his encounter with death following a heart surgery in 1998.

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Major Works