Trivia

Author and university professor.

He won the Al Owais Award for fiction writing in 2007.

In 2000 he won the Prize of Palestine for his book "Gate of the Sun".

Studied history at Lebanese University and graduated in 1971.

In 1972 he received his PhD in social history at the University of Paris.

Was a member of Fatah.

From 1993 to 2009 he served as an editor of Al-Mulhaq, the weekly cultural supplement of the Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Nahar.

Worked as the technical director of Beirut Theater from 1992 to 1998.

Between 1980 and 1985 he worked as an editor of the series Thakirat Al-Shu'ub, published by the Arab Research Foundation in Beirut.

Served as the editor of the Palestine Liberation Organization's magazine Shu'un Filastiniyya (Palestinian Affairs Magazine) from 1975 to 1979 in collaboration with Mahmoud Darwish.

In the 1980s he was the editorial director first of Al Karmel magazine, and then of the cultural section of Al-Safir.

Was a co-director of the Ayloul Festival of Modern Arts.

His works have been translated and published in Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.

In 1966 he earned his high school diploma from al-Ra'i al-Saleh High School in Beirut.

Taught at many universities, including New York University, University of Houston, Berkeley College, The University of Chicago, Columbia University, Georgetown University, the University of Minnesota and Princeton University in the United States. He also taught at the University of Poitiers in France, the University of London in the UK, the University of Berlin in Germany and the University of Zurich in Switzerland. In his home country Lebanon, he taught at the American University of Beirut, the Lebanese American University, and his alma mater Lebanese University.

At the start of the Lebanese civil war he became a member of the Lebanese National Movement, an alliance of leftist, pan-Arab parties with mostly Muslim supporters. He was injured during the war, and temporarily blinded.