Samih al-Qasim

Samih al-Qasim was born in 1939 in Zarqa

Al-Qasim was born in 1939 in Zarqa, in Transjordan, where his father served in the Arab Legion. His Druze family came from Rameh in the Galilee. He went to primary school in Rameh and finished secondary school in Nazareth.

He worked as a teacher until he was dismissed in 1965 over his political activity. He refused to serve in the IDF and was jailed several times for his activism. He joined the Communist Party in 1967 and was detained in Damon Prison when the Six-Day War began.

He became a journalist in the 1960s and worked for al-Ittihad and al-Jadid. In 1992 he became editor of the weekly Kul al-Arab. He published poetry from 1958, and many of his poems were set to music.

He wrote a book of letters with Mahmoud Darwish and translated poems by Ronny Someck into Arabic in 1995. In 2001 Israeli authorities barred him from traveling to Lebanon. He died of cancer on August 19, 2014, and was buried in Rameh.