Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
Information
(August 27, 1963 – December 7, 2023)
was a Palestinian poet and writer born in Gaza City. He published several collections of poetry. He lived in Syria and Lebanon before returning to Gaza in 1994.
Born in Gaza in 1963, he and his family left Palestine after his father was deported by Israeli occupation authorities in 1968. His father had worked with the resistance in Jordan before moving to Syria after 1970, where the family settled in the al-Raml refugee camp near Latakia. His father was killed in Lebanon in 1973, an event that profoundly influenced the poet's life and later writings.
His studies and literary activity:
Salim Al-Naffar received his school and university education in the city of Latakia, and studied Arabic literature at Tishreen University in Syria, where he formed the annual “Abu Salma” forum for young creators in 1986.
He wrote poetry early on and was politically active in the ranks of the Palestine Liberation Organization until his return to Gaza with the Palestinian National Authority in 1994. He contributed to the founding of the “Cultural Creativity” Association in Gaza in 1997.
He worked as a director in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, and was also a literary editor in the magazine “Nidal Al-Shaab”, the magazine “Al-Zaytouna”, and the magazine “Al-Ufuq”. Salim Al-Naffar was also a member of the General Secretariat of the Union of Palestinian Writers and Authors –
Gaza Strip,
and was one of the founders of the “Cultural Creativity” group in Gaza in 199. The Palestinian Ministry of Education approved his poem “O My Beloved” in the curriculum for the third preparatory grade. He represented Palestine in poetry festivals in Baghdad, Jerash, Doha and Scotland. His poem “Under Siege” was translated and published in the collection “A Bird is Not a Stone,” which was published in Scotland in 2014 and included selected poems by 25 Palestinian poets.
His most prominent works
include the poetry collections:
"Reflections on the Water's Balcony," published by the Union of Palestinian Writers and Authors in Jerusalem in 1996;
"A Wall for Her," published by Dar Al-Amal Printing and Publishing in Gaza in 1997;
"The Whiteness of Questions," published by the Ugarit Center for Publishing and Translation in Ramallah in 2001;
"Honor Over That Rain," published by Abu Ghosh Publishing Agency in Jerusalem in 2004;
"A State of a Homeland" and other poems, published by Dar Daroub Al-Ghad in Jordan in 2014; "
Completed Poetic Works," published by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture in Ramallah in 2016; " The Guardian of Waiting," published by
Dar Al-Kalima for Publishing and Distribution in Gaza in 2021; "This Is What I Mean... An Autobiography," published by the Palestinian National Guidance Foundation in Ramallah in 2004; a prose book titled "Gaza" in 2014, published by Kol Shay Library in Haifa in 2017; "Lanterns of the Camp," a novel published by Kol Shay Library in Haifa in 2018; and "A Narrow Memory of Joy - An Autobiography," published by Kol Shay Library in Haifa. In 2020, the novel "Latakia Nights" was published by Kol Shay Library in Haifa. In 2022, Salim al-Naffar and his family were assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on his home in the al-Nasr neighborhood during the Israeli-Palestinian War. Al-Naffar, his wife, daughters, his only son Mustafa, his sister, her husband, and their children were all killed in the raid, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Writers Union, Murad al-Sudani, and others.
Source
Achievements and Awards
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