Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and one of the leading artists of the Arab world who gave voice to the struggles of his people. He received international acclaim for his poetry which mostly focused on the strong affection for a lost homeland. Born to a family of landowners, his family fled to Lebanon upon the establishment of Israel and stayed there for a year, before secretly re-entering Israel and settling down. After completing his secondary education, he began publishing poetry and articles for newspapers and magazines, later serving as their editor. After that, he moved to Cairo and Beirut, where he worked in the research and publishing institutes of the PLO, from which he resigned following the Oslo Accords. His poetry became much sophisticated over the years and he gained international fame. One of the central themes of his poetry was the concept of homeland and his poetry was characterized by the honesty of his emotions and the novelty of his poetic images. In his long and flourishing career, he published around 30 collections of poetry and prose, which were translated into more than two dozen languages. His poems received positive response throughout the Arab world, and several of them were put to music. He earned numerous awards for his marvelous literary works, and the honor of being the Palestinian national poet was bestowed upon him.