Mourid Barghouti ( ar, مريد البرغوثي, ; 8 July 1944 – 14 February 2021) was a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

Biography

Barghouti was born in Deir Ghassana, near Ramallah, on the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, in 8 July 1944. He studied English literature at

Cairo University Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...

, graduating in 1967, though he was exiled from Egypt in 1977. The Oslo Accords finally allowed Barghouti to return to the

, and in 1996 he returned to Ramallah after 30 years of exile. This event inspired his autobiographical novel ''Ra'aytu Ram Allah'' ('' I Saw Ramallah''), published by Dar Al Hilal (Cairo, 1997), which won him the

Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature is a literary award for Arabic literature.Maya Jaggi Maya Jaggi is a British writer, literary critic , editor and cultural journalist.Maya Jaggi profi ...

in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', Barghouti was quoted as saying: "I learn from trees. Just as many fruits drop before they're ripe, when I write a poem I treat it with healthy cruelty, deleting images to take care of the right ones." Barghouti was married to the novelist Radwa Ashour, with whom he had a son, the poet Tamim Barghouti. He died in Amman on 14 February 2021, aged 76.

Bibliography

English translations: * ''Midnight and Other Poems,'' translated by Radwa Ashour, ARC Publications, UK, October 2008, , * ''I Was Born There, I Was Born Here'', Bloomsbury, 2011 * '' I Saw Ramallah'' Random House, Anchor Books, 2003-05-13 and Bloomsbury, UK, and the American University in Cairo Press (January 2003), * ''A Small Sun,'' Poems translated by Radwa Ashour and W. S. Merwin, Aldeburgh Poetry Trust, 2003 paperback, Suffolk, UK, *Contributor to ''A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue Between East and West''. Spanish translations: * ''Medianoche'' (poetry), translated by Luis Miguel Canada, published by Fundacion Antonio Perez. UCLM, Cuenca, Spain, 2006, and * ''He visto Ramala'', translated by Iñaki Gutierrez de Teran, published by Ediciones del oriente y del mediterraneo, Guadarrama, Spain, 2002, and

References

External links

Mourid Barghouti Official Website

Mourid Barghouti
Bio, excerpts, interviews and articles in the archives of the

Prague Writers' Festival The Prague Writers' Festival (PWF) is an annual literary festival in Prague, Czech Republic, taking place every spring since 1991. In 2005 the festival was also held in Vienna. Many of the events are broadcast via the internet. International lite ...

* Mourid Barghouti
"Viewpoint: I'm Palestinian - but where am I from?"
BBC, 12 November 2011.
I Was Born There, I Was Born Here
Review of Mourid Barghouti's book. {{DEFAULTSORT:Barghouti, Mourid 1944 births 2021 deaths 20th-century Palestinian poets Palestinian memoirists Recipients of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature 21st-century Palestinian poets Palestinian male poets 20th-century male writers 21st-century male writers People from Bani Zeid al-Gharbia