Samih al-Qasim was born in 1939 in Zarqa, Jordan, to Palestinian Druze parents from the Galilee. He grew up in the village of Rama in northern Palestine and was a leading figure of the "resistance poets" of the 1950s. He has written over thirty books of poetry, several novels, collections of plays and essays. Al-Qasim worked as an editor for the Ghad and Ittihad newspapers and is editor-in-chief of the Israeli Arab newspaper Koull El Arab. He is a citizen of Israel and also resides in Rama.