Exploring modernity and its intellectual trends in the Middle East is a very fitting endeavour, as ‘Middle East’ itself is a ‘modern’ term which has…
This renowned Palestinian poet and activist was born to a rich and politically influential family in Nablus, a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank,…
Taleb Dweik was born in 1952 in Jerusalem and studied art at Hilwan University in Cairo. He was known for his paintings of the Palestinian…
Sophie Halaby was born in 1906 in Jerusalem to a Palestinian father and Russian mother. She pursued her higher education in France and Italy between…
Salma Khadra Jayyusi is an anthologist, translator, literary critic, and poet of Palestinian origins. A writer and researcher in her own right, she is better…
Anton Shammas is a Palestinian poet, novelist, academic and translator. He is best known for his 1986 novel ערבסקות/Arabeskot [Arabesques], the first high-profile novel written…
Nabil Anani was born in Latrun, Palestine in 1943. He graduated in Fine Arts from Alexandria University, Egypt in 1969, going on to work as…
Vladmir Tamari was born in Jerusalem in 1942 and is the brother of artist Vera Tamari and classical music singer Tayna Tamari. He studied physics…
Born in Jerusalem to Armenian parents who survived the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Guiragossian eventually settled in Beirut after being evacuated from Palestine by the British.…
Born in 1947 in Birzeit, Palestine (north of Ramallah), Sliman Mansour studied fine arts at the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem. Since the 1970s, his…
Kamal al Mughani was born 1943 in Gaza, and studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Alexandria. Soon after his return to…
Laila Shawa was born in Gaza in 1940. Between 1957 and 1958, she travelled to Cairo to study art at the Leonardo da Vinci Art…
Nazir Nabaa, a respected Syrian painter, made his greatest contributions to Arab modern art in the 1960s and 1970s, when he contributed to the graphic…
The Hebrew author Amos Oz (born Amos Klausner)—an essayist, professor of literature at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and active contributor to Israeli and…
Vera Tamari was born in 1945 in Jerusalem. Her parents, originally from the coastal city of Jaffa, exposed their children to visual art, music, and…
Dr Khalid al-Jader was born in Baghdad, Iraq. He had a distinguished career as an Iraqi artist, scholar, and administrator throughout the mid-20th century. He…
Levin, Hanoch is an Israeli playwright and short story writer. Born in the southern quarters of Tel Aviv to lower middle-class Polish immigrants Levin’s background…
Arab-American Theater is a general term that describes plays and performances by Americans of Arab descent written in Arabic and/or English from the early twentieth…
Born in Bethlehem, Palestine, in 1920, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra was a distinguished intellectual whose literary writing, translation, and criticism played an important role in Arab…
Jean Genet was a poet, novelist, autobiographer and playwright within the Theatre of the Absurd movement. He wrote licentiously on homosexuals and outlaws, and explosively…
The literary journal al-Adab was established in Beirut in 1953. This avant-garde journal was open to all forms of literary experimentation and to all views…
Arguably the most important Israeli composer to emerge in the late twentieth century, Czernowin, born 7 December in Haifa, is much sought after as a composer…
The perception of the Arabic letter in art has gone through many changes from the Islamic civilization to the modern age. Following the political and…
Avot Yeshurun was a renowned Hebrew poet who remained split between two cities throughout his life: his childhood village Krasnistav and the city of Tel-Aviv,…