Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
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Asaad Abdel Moneim Al-Asaad was born in the depopulated village of Beit Mahsir, Jerusalem District, on October 11, 1947. He studied the primary stage at the Aqbat Jabr camp school affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and obtained his high school diploma from the Ibrahimiyya College in Jerusalem in 1966. He obtained a diploma in surveying and engineering drawing from Beirut College in 1967, a bachelor’s degree in Arabic language and literature from the University of Aleppo in Syria in 1979, and a doctorate in history from Tashkent University in Uzbekistan in 2011.
He worked in surveying and engineering drawing, and worked as an Arabic language teacher in the schools of the villages of Mazra’a al-Nubani, Arura, Silwad and al-Ram. He opened the “Shuruq” bookstore in Ramallah, and worked as the editor of the literary page in Al-Fajr newspaper between (1973-1976). He was a member of the editorial board of Al-Bayader Al-Adabi, and headed the editorial board of the monthly magazine Al-Kateb from 1979 until 1995. He published Al-Bilad newspaper between (1995-1998). He was appointed Director General in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture in 1998, and Ambassador of Palestine to Azerbaijan and later to Uzbekistan. He was Dean of the Arab Ambassadors in Uzbekistan in 2011, and a non-resident ambassador to Turkmenistan, and a lecturer at Tashkent University in Uzbekistan in 2011.
Al-Asaad became involved in political activity at an early stage in his life, joining the Communist Party in 1966 while he was studying at university in Beirut. However, he soon returned to Palestine a week after the June 1967 defeat, then joined the Palestinian Communist Party in 1973, and became a leader in the party until he resigned from it in 1990.
Al-Asaad was one of the founders of the Union of Palestinian Writers in the Occupied Territories in 1984, and its Secretary-General in 1992. He was a member of the Arab Journalists Association in Jerusalem, President of the Palestinian Council for Culture and Media, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Palestinian National Theatre, Al-Qasaba Theatre, and the Arab Center for Music.
Al-Asaad wrote prose, poetry, and political and literary articles. He published a number of novels, including: Night of the Violet (1989), Naked Memory (2003), There in Samarkand (2012), With the Taste of Embers (2014), Memory of Salt (2017), and Paths of Elegies (2020). He published his autobiography entitled Embers of Memories - A Drop in the Ocean (2024). He published four poetry collections, including Birth in Exile (1976), Words on Staying and Leaving (1978), You Are Me, Jerusalem and the Rain (1982), and Give Me an Ember from Your Dream (1994). He also published a play entitled The Mill. He has three studies: “The Land and Zionist Practice” (1979), “Palestinian Culture in the Face of the Occupation 1967-2005” (2023). He wrote a collection of songs, the most famous of which is “We Went Down to the Streets,” which became popular during the First Palestinian Intifada.
Al-As’ad suffered under the occupation, as the occupation army and its intelligence raided his library in Ramallah, confiscated his books, and closed it down. He was arrested more than once, and the occupation prevented him from working in the West Bank. The occupation also stopped the publication of “Al-Kateb” magazine, of which he was the editor-in-chief, and dismissed him from his job as a teacher in 1976, and prevented him from traveling for nine years.
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