Ghassan Zaqtan

Born near Bethlehem, Palestinian poet, novelist and editor Ghassan Zaqtan has lived in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Tunisia. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry, a novel, and a play, The Narrow Sea, which was honored at the 1994 Cairo Festival. His verse collection Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, translated by Fady Joudah, was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize for 2013, and he was nominated for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in both 2014 and 2016.