Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Arif Hijawi was born on February 19, 1956 in Nablus; He is a Palestinian writer who worked in the professions of education and media, and most of his books are in these two fields. Hijjawi received his school education in public schools, and as he mentions in his media biography, My Life in the Media, he gained real education from his readings. In several articles, he mentioned schools negatively, describing them as not educating students, but rather hindering them from learning.
He obtained his bachelor’s degree under pressure from his family, after struggling for about ten years, including studying history for three years in Germany, but he was unsuccessful. He worked in the Arabic department at the British Broadcasting Corporation for ten years, the last four of which he was program director. In 1998, he moved to work as director of radio training at the Media Institute at Birzeit University and then as director of the institute, for a period of seven years. He worked at Al Jazeera since the beginning of 2006, where he was director of programs for six years, then director of editorial standards in the quality control sector until 2017.
He spent three years in school education in early youth, and worked as editor-in-chief of Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda newspaper... the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, for six months in 2012, before returning to the Al-Jazeera network. Aref Hijjawi believes in the Arabic language as the only means for the cognitive, scientific and economic advancement of Arab countries, and this is clearly evident in his book The High Language. He refuses to include the Latin letter in any of his writings, and criticizes him because he sees that there is no future for parsing and forming words in the Arabic language. In the stories he wrote and radio talks, he criticizes the prevailing tendency of absurdity, and the duality of his view of heritage, where he sometimes exalts its importance, and considers it a burden that hinders progress at times.
Among his works and writings: Arabic Grammar (Shorouk Publishing House, Jordan 2001); The Palestinian Question (self-published/Palestine 2003); Writing for Radio (Institute of Media at Birzeit University/Palestine 2004); Grammar Butter (Institute of Media at Birzeit University/Palestine 2004); Dear Listener (Institute of Media at Birzeit University/Palestine 2014); A Glance of Hope (Women’s Committee - Palestine 2005); Summary of Grammar (Al Jazeera Channel - Qatar 2006); Poet of a Thousand Years: Ahmed Shawqi (Al-Shorouk - Egypt 2007); Al-Mutanabbi Juice (Dar Al-Shorouk - Egypt 2009); Media Freedom in Palestine / Translated from German (Institute of Media at Birzeit University / Palestine 2001); TV correspondent/translator from English (Institute of Media at Birzeit University/Palestine 2002); Oslo Negotiations / translated from English (Institute for Palestine Studies/Jerusalem - Beirut 2014); Wrong Wrong: 268 radio conversations, broadcast from Ajyal Radio, Palestine (Publisher: Ajyal Radio 2014); High language, correct Arabic for the broadcaster, reporter, and journalist, (Quality Control Sector of Al Jazeera Network, 2014); My Life in the Media (Studies Center of Al Jazeera Network, 2015); “Al-Zabdah” series, an anthology of Arabic poetry in five parts, the first three were published (Dar Al-Mashreq - Egypt 2016).
His media programs were as follows: Studies in English Literature - 21 episodes of analysis and drama, BBC (radio); A House of Poetry - 50 episodes in tasting Arabic poetry, BBC (radio); Ozan Al-Qasid 29 episodes in Arabic poetry shows, BBC (radio); Encyclopedia, 30 episodes in scientific knowledge, BBC (radio); News programmes, including working as an editorial supervisor at the BBC (radio); With good and good news: These people created the twentieth century, The Way of Love in Nablus (radio); Whisper and Noise - A Journey in Classical Music, 54 episodes - Ajyal Radio (radio); Qalal Al-Shaer, 253 episodes, Al Jazeera Channel (TV); Wrong, wrong, 268 episodes, Ajyal Radio (radio); Easy, Difficult, Impossible, 25 episodes, Ajyal Radio (radio); Fruit of Hearing, 20 episodes, Ajyal Radio (radio); Politics, 15 episodes, Al-Quds Educational TV (TV); A Glitter of Hope, 20 episodes, Ajyal Radio (radio); The Reassured Soul, 20 episodes, Ajyal Radio (radio), in addition to many episodes; He presented 52 episodes for Al Jazeera; Recently, he presents a program, Ladies and Gentlemen, on the Arab TV channel, which is a program that attracts the audience, especially the fascination with our beautiful Arabic language.
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