By Palestine Chronicle Staff
The family of the Palestinian poet Ahmad Dahbour, famous for his revolutionary poetry, said he passed away in Ramallah yesterday after a long struggle with kidney disease.
Dahbour, 72, was a well-known poet whose prose was often put to music during the Palestinian revolution, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was based in Lebanon.
The Palestinian Ministry of Culture said in a statement, “with the passing of Dahbour, Palestine has lost not only one of the giants of literature and Palestinian creativity, but rather a landmark that has always been directed to Palestine.”
Dahbour was born in Haifa in 1946, in present-day northern Israel. After the establishment of the Israeli state… https://t.co/hryvF5VKK1
— antonio maniscalco (@antoniomanisca4) April 9, 2017
Dahbour was born April 26, 1946 in Haifa in Palestine. His family were exiled to Lebanon as refugees following the occupation of 78% of historical Palestine in 1948. Two years later, the family moved to Syria where he grew up and received his basic education.
Dahbour returned back to Palestine following signing the Oslo Accords in 1993.
He was the editor of the Lotus Journal in 1988 and a director for the Cultural Department at the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
I'm sad to hear Palestine and the Levant have lost one of its cherished poets, Ahmad Dahbour at age 71.#Arablit #poetry #Arabliterature pic.twitter.com/NRqwrNaNse
— Dima Sarsour ديمة (@YasminWaQahwa) April 8, 2017
He published a number of poetry collections such as the Tale of the Palestinian Child. In 1988, he won the Tawfiq Zayyad Poetry Award.
Many of his poems were turned into songs for the Palestinian revolution, including ‘The Green Almond’, ‘O World Be Witness to us and to Beirut’, ‘The Streets of the Refugee Camp’, ‘The Fire Broke Out’, and ‘O Children of Palestine’.
The following song, ‘O Children of Palestine’ was written by Ahmad Dahobur and sang by Dawaween ensemble in Gaza.
(PalestineChronicle.com)
