The Mossawa Center, Haifa.Thursday 20th of August 2014. On August 19th 2014 the world famous poet Samih al-Qasim lost his battle with cancer at the age of 75. His death is a major loss to the world of Arabic literature and poetry. Samih Al-Qasim was well known for his resistance poetry in which he defended the rights and identity of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. He was born to a Druze family from the Galilee region in 1939. He went to high school in Nazareth and later worked as a journalist in Haifa running the Arabesque Press and the Folk Arts Centre as well as being the editor of the Arabic language newspaper Kul al-Arab.

Al-Qasim's family chose to remain in their home in 1948 and he said that some of his earliest memories were of the events during the Nakba (the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians). Al-Qasim was one of the first in the Druze community to refuse to serve in the Israeli army, an action that his son also took. During his life he faced imprisonment, house arrest, censorship of his works and harassment from the Shin Bet (Israeli secret police).

One of his most famous poems "Slit Lips" is an example of the censorship and pressure Al-Qasim felt as a Palestinian writer in Israel.

I would have liked to tell you

The story of a nightingale that died.

I would have liked to tell you

The story...

                  Had they not slit my lips.

A translation of al-Qasim's poem, Ashes can be found here

Sadder Than Water, a collection of al-Qasim's work which was translated to English by Nazih Kassis and published by Ibis Editions and can be found here