Mourid Barghouti Palestine

Mourid Barghouti was born on the 8 July 1944 in Deir Ghassana near Ramallah, Palestine. He has published twelve books of poetry, the last of which is Muntasaf al-Layl / Midnight (Beirut, 2005). His Collected Works came out in Beirut in 1997. A Small Sun, his first poetry book in English translation, was published by The Aldeburgh Poetry Trust in 2003. In the year 2000, he was awarded the Palestine Award for Poetry. His poems are published, in Arabic, in international literary magazines and English translations have been published in Al Ahram Weekly, Banipal, Times Literary Supplement, Pen and Modern Poetry in Translation. His autobiographical narrative, Ra'aytu Ramallah / I Saw Ramallah (1997), published in several editions in Arabic, won the Naguib Mahfouz Award for Literature (1997) and was translated into several languages; the English translation was published by the American University in Cairo Press as well as by Random House, New York and Bloomsbury, London. Edward Said described I Saw Ramallah as one of the finest existential accounts of Palestinian displacement we now have and John Berger wrote that it was a bedside book if ever there was one, unforgettable memories, razor insights, name-games, stories with eyes closed, no conclusions, only the passionate pain of exile, recounted at the end of the day by a true poet.

He participated in numerous conferences and poetry readings and festivals in almost all Arab countries and in several European cities. He lived in Cairo with his wife Radwa Ashour for many years.

Mourid Barghouti died on 14 February 2021. He is survived by his son Tamim.

Guardian profile

Webcast from Tate Modern (Mourid is in Session 2)

Watch Barghouti reading from Midnight and Other Stories at the Prague Writer's festival 2009.

(2021)