Mahmoud Darwish: The Life and Legacy of Palestine's National Poet

Few writers are as closely tied to a people as Mahmoud Darwish is to Palestine. His poems are recited at weddings and funerals, set to music, painted on walls and quoted at demonstrations around the world. For many Palestinians, he put into words what it means to lose a home and to keep hold of it at the same time.

His birthday, 13 March, is marked as Palestinian Culture Day.

A life shaped by exile

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Darwish was born in 1941 in al-Birwa, a village in the Galilee. In 1948 his family fled to Lebanon; when they returned, the village had been destroyed and they lived as internal refugees in Israel. He began publishing poetry as a young man and became known for poems about identity and belonging, including the famous "Identity Card".

After years of arrests and house arrest, he left in 1970 and spent decades in exile, living in cities including Cairo, Beirut and Paris. He wrote the text of the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence and later settled in Ramallah. He died in 2008 in the United States after heart surgery and was buried in Ramallah, where a museum and garden now honour him.

Where to start reading

Good English starting points include the collections Unfortunately, It Was Paradise and The Butterfly's Burden, the prose work Memory for Forgetfulness about the siege of Beirut, and his late book In the Presence of Absence. Many UK libraries and independent bookshops stock his work in translation.

Darwish wrote about pain without giving up on beauty and hope, which is why his words still speak to people far beyond Palestine. Designs such as Hope and Exist. Resist. Return. carry a little of that same spirit. Explore more of Palestinian culture in our guide to Palestinian symbols.