Sector : Cultural Figures , Novelists

Personal Info

• Country of residence: Palestine

• Gender: Male

• Born in: 1954

• Age: 70

• Curriculum vitae :

Information

Ghassan Khalil Zaqtan (born in 1954 in Beit Jala ), a Palestinian poet, novelist, and journalist , holds the position of Director General of the Department of Literature and Publishing in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.

He worked as a cultural editor in several Palestinian national newspapers and magazines and was editor-in-chief of the Poets magazine published in Ramallah . He has published several poetry and prose publications.

His upbringing and education

He was born in 1954 in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, to a family from the village of Zakaria. His father is the poet Khalil Zaqtan (1928-1980), who worked after the Nakba as an employee in UNRWA . He moved with his family according to his father’s work locations in the Palestinian camps and lived in the Karama camp in the years 1960 to 1967, then he moved to Amman . He graduated in 1973 from the UNRWA Teachers’ Institute in Amman and worked as a physical education teacher until 1978.

His journalistic and literary activities

He lived in Beirut in the years 1979-1982 and published his first poetic works there. He worked as a cultural editor in Al-Hurriya magazine, which was published by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine . He moved with it to Damascus after the withdrawal of the Palestinian resistance from Beirut in 1982. He moved to Tunisia and worked as managing editor of Al-Bayader magazine. » Which was issued by the Palestine Liberation Organization and was edited by Ahmed Dahbour .

He returned to Palestine after the signing of the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Self-Government Authority . He worked in Masharef magazine, whose editor-in-chief was Emil Habibi . From 2000 to 2004, he edited the Poets magazine published in Ramallah and was the director of the House of Poetry. He also edited the cultural page. In Al-Ayyam newspaper published in Ramallah, he has a weekly column there. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Mahmoud Darwish Foundation and its Executive Council.

Harassment

In 2012, a poetry reading at the New York State Book Institute was canceled after a visa delay. In 2013, Canada refused to grant him a visa to enter its territory, but it changed its decision after a protest from some prominent writers.

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