Fadwa Tuqan was the sister of the poet, playwright and Radio Palestine director, Ibrahim Tuqan, who died in 1941 and whose poems became rallying cries for Palestinians during the anti-British revolt of 1933-37. Ibrahim tutored his younger sister in poetry via letters posted from Beirut, where he was lecturing.
She was born in Nablus, shortly before the Balfour declaration promised the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine. Her upbringing was privileged, yet strictly circumscribed by social norms. In 1948, when thousands of Palestinian Arabs poured into Nablus, the town assumed the cultural mantle of the lost cities of Jaffa, Haifa and West Jerusalem. Paradoxically, the Palestinian nakba (catastrophe) and the death of Fadwa's stern father, also in 1948, coincided with a sense of liberation for the poet. Feudalism crumbled. Suddenly, young and educated women could mix freely with their male counterparts. "When the roof fell on Palestine, the veil fell off the face of the Nablus woman," she wrote.
Israel, however, was not her only foe. Another was Arab society itself, and, in particular, its treatment of women. In her autobiography, translated as Mountainous Journey (1990), she describes how Arab women were hidden in the household like frightened birds in a crowded coop.
Tuqan gained an international audience after her poetry was translated into English in the 1980s. Tuqan won poetry prizes from Italy, Greece and Jordan; gained the Palestinians' Jerusalem Award for Culture and Art in 1990; and served on the board of trustees for An-Najah University in Nablus.
Excerpted from Lawrence Joffe's obituary in the Guardian. Read the full article here.
Details:
DOB: 1917-2003.
Country: Palestine
Selected works:
My Brother Ibrahim (1946)
Alone With The Days (1952)
Give Us Love (1960)
Before The Closed Door (1967)
A Mountainous Journey
Awards: International Poetry Award (Palermo, Italy); Jerusalem Award for Culture and Arts, PLO (1990); United Arab Emirates Award (1990); Honorary Palestine prize for poetry (1996). .
Website: Please enter website here; you may find the Hyperlink icon on tool bar useful here.
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