State of Siege

Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) was born in Al-Birwa, a village in Mandatory Palestine destroyed in 1948. He became the national poet of Palestine and one of the most widely translated Arab poets of the twentieth century. His poetry collections include A Lover from Palestine (1966) and Unfortunately, It Was Paradise (2003), a volume of selected poems in English translation. His prose memoir Memory for Forgetfulness, on the 1982 siege of Beirut, appeared in Arabic in 1987. He served on the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and edited the literary journal Al-Karmel. He received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1983 and the Prince Claus Award in 2004.