Mahmoud Darwish (Birva, Palestine, 1941 – Houston, USA, 2008) was one of the most influential contemporary Palestinian poets. His family was expelled in 1948, so Darwish spent his exile in Lebanon, Moscow and Cairo. The Israeli authorities often forbade him to return and stay in Palestine, and imprisoned him several times. In 1988, he wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence , but in 1993, disappointed with the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, he resigned from the executive board of the PLO committee and withdrew from Palestinian politics. Since 1996 he has lived between Paris, Amman and Ramallah. He is the author of eight books of prose, including two books of memoirs, and more than thirty collections of poetry. Through his verses, he gave voice to the struggle of the Palestinian people, and the strength of his poetry is visible in the sincerity of his emotions and the originality of the poetic images. He is the winner of numerous international awards, and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages.