Ghassan Zaqtan

Ghassan Zaqtan (غسان زقطان; born 1954) is a Palestinian poet, author of ten collections of poetry.

He is also a novelist, editor.

He was born in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, and has lived in Jordan, Beirut, Damascus, and Tunis.

He was born in 1954 in Beit Jala, West Bank.

His father, Khalil Zaqtan, was a poet.

From 1960 to 1967, he lived at Karameh.

He graduated from Teachers Training College, Nu'ur, Jordan.

From 1973 to 1979, he was a physical education teacher.

He was editor of El-Bayader.

He was director general of Literature and Publishing Department, of the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.

He was the editor of Al-Shu’ara from 2000-2004 and director of the House of Poetry.

He is a consultant for cultural policies in the Welfare Association and is a member of the executive board of the Mahmoud Darwish Foundation.

Zaqtan writes a weekly column in Al-Ayyam newspaper.

His work appeared in Triquarterly.

He lives in Ramallah.

In 2012, a reading at the New York State Writers Institute was canceled after visa delays.

His book “Like a Straw Bird it Follows me” translated by Fady Joudah was awarded the 2013 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

In June of 2013, his name appeared for the first time among the speculation list for the Nobel Prize Literature for the fall of 2013.

Ghassan Zaqtan’s work has been translated to English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Turkish, German, and other languages.

In 2013, he was denied an entry visa to Canada.

After a protest by prominent writers, his visa was granted.

“Reading Fady Joudah’s remarkable translations of Zaqtan, I was thinking of the great poet and mythmaker of Yugoslavia, Vasko Popa, who also saw violence and wrote the dream-time of his nation.

Like Popa, Zaqtan is unafraid to claim his roots, but also to see the “secret builders Cavafy had awakened / passing through the hills,” digging by his pillow.

For this bravery and lyric skill, I am grateful.”—Ilya Kaminsky

Griffin Poetry Prize 2013

Judges’ Citation

“What does poetry do?

Nothing and everything, like air, water, soil, like birds, fish, trees, like love, spirit, our daily words … It lives with us, in and outside us, everywhere, all the time, and yet, we are too often oblivious of this gift.

It’s a poet’s job to bring this gift out and back, this gift that makes us human again.

And Mr. Zaqtan has done it.

His poetry awakens the spirits buried deep in the garden, in our hearts, in the past, present and future.

His singing reminds us why we live and how, in the midst of war, despair, global changes.

His words turn dark into light, hatred into love, death into life.

His magic leads us to the clearing where hope becomes possible, where healing begins across individuals, countries, races … and we are one with air, water, soil, birds, fish, trees … our daily words pregnant with beauty, and we begin to sing again till ‘ … the singer / and the song / are alike (Biography in Charcoal)’.

This is Mr. Zaqtan’s only ‘profession’.

It’s now also ours.

His name appeared twice among the short-listed award winners of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in the years of 2014, 2016 by the University of Oklahoma, perceived as the American Nobel Prize.

In recognition of his achievement and contribution to Arabic and Palestinian literature, Ghassan Zaqtan was awarded the National Medal of Honor by the Palestinian president.

Zaqtan, who is also the winner of the Mahmoud Darwish Excellence Award in 2016 (along with Lebanese Elias Khoury and American Alice Walker) was awarded Lebanese poet Anwar Salman's poetry award in 2019 at a ceremony held at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

His most recent book of poetry, The Silence That Remains, also translated by Fady Joudah, was published in 2017 by Copper Canyon Press.