Mahmoud Darwcesh was born in Palestine in 1942. As a child of six, he recalls how his native village of Al-Birwa was destroyed by the Israeli army. A refugee in his own country, he moved to the Galilee where he began writing. He worked as a journalist in Haifa, but as his poetry became more popular, he became a victim of Israeli military harassment. He was jailed many times, and finally put under house arrest.
