FADWA TUQAN (1917 - 2003)

THE POET OF LOVE AND PAIN

“Enough for Me
Enough for me to die on her earth
be buried in her
to melt and vanish into her soil
then sprout forth as a flower
played with by a child from my country.”

Excerpt from Enough for Me in The Night and the Horsemen, 1969

The poet Fadwa Tuqan witnessed so much. Born in 1917 in Palestine under British rule, she lived through Britain’s issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the Nakba in 1948, the 1967 war and beginning of the Israeli occupation, the 1993 Oslo Accords and the formation of the Palestinian Authority, the initial construction of Israel’s Apartheid Wall, and two Intifadas. 

Born into a deeply conservative household in the city of Nablus, Fadwa rejected any customs she felt stifled her pursuit of knowledge. She learned to write poetry at an early age from her talented brother Ibrahim, a famous poet himself. Her early work reflects a pioneering bravery in its candid accounts of femininity, love, and emotion. After the 1967 war and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, her poetry adopted a more overtly political tone, emphasizing anti-colonial resistance and the role of women in social protest. Israeli army general Moshe Dayan is known to have said that reading a poem by Tuqan was like facing 20 enemy commandos. [1]

In 2003, Tuqan died of natural causes in her hometown as it was under Israeli siege. Today, she is considered to be among the most distinguished figures of modern Arabic literature, an indomitable writer and poet who defied patriarchy, colonization, and occupation to give voice to Palestinian national loss and resistance.

Ancestors of Palestinian Liberation is a collaboration of Anemoia Projects and Palestine Advocacy Project

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