Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
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Yousef Al Khateeb was born in 1931 in the district of Hebron, Palestine. He later immigrated to Syria with his family, where he joined the Faculty of Law, Damascus University and the Arab Socialist Baath Party. In 1955, he obtained his Bachelor's degree in law, and in the same year he also released his first collection of poems; "Eyes Thirsty for Light". In subsequent years, Al Khateeb served as Director-General of the Radio and Television Authority in Syria. In 1966, he permanently gave up his job in the government to found "The Palestine Center for Culture, Information and Art", through which he issued many publications. The most important and memorable of these publications is "The Palestinian Memorandum"; where Al Khateeb journalized the Palestinian Issue based on a number of important references. He continued to publish "The Palestinian Memorandum" for 9 years (1967-1976) in 5 languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish and German. Throughout his career, Al Khateeb published 6 collections of poetry: "Eyes Thirsty for Light" (1955), "Returning" (1959),"Oasis of Hell", "Crazy for Palestine" (1983), "I Saw God in Gaza" (1988), and "In the Levant are My People, and My Love is Baghdad" (1988).
Yousef Al Khateeb passed away in Damascus on Friday morning, June 17, 2011. He was 80. In his poetry, the late Al Khateeb had documented Palestinian memory through places and names. The Arabic Language was his passion, and he was considered an authority on the subject by many Arab writers and innovators.
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