EP2: Mahmoud Shukair

In this episode we speak with writer Mahmoud Shukair about his cultural biography that took him from Jerusalem to Beirut, Amman, Prague and back to Jerusalem; about al-Ufuq al-Jadid magazine, and the cultural institutions he worked with.

Mahmoud Shukair was born in 1941 in Jabal al-Mukabir on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He was part of the generation formed around the magazine al-Ufuq al-Jadid in Jerusalem. He was persecuted due to his membership in the communist party and imprisoned by the Israeli occupation authorities in 1969 and 1975, before being forcefully exiled to Lebanon. After he moved to Amman, where he lived until 1987, he was sent to Prague to edit the Arabic-language magazine “Problems of Peace and Socialism”. He returned to Amman after the fall of socialism and became one of the first returnees to Palestine as a result of the Oslo Accords. Shukair worked in numerous periodicals such as al-Quds, al-Ra’i, al-Tali’a and Dafatir Thaqafiyya and was an active member in both the Palestinian and Jordanian Writers’ Union. He has published over 65 books that range from novels, short story collections, children and young adult’s literature, and memoirs, as well as writing for TV, including a TV series on the poet Ibrahim Tuqan.

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Produced by the PalREAD – Country of Words project, funded by the European Research Council (ERC)

Interviewer: Aseel Duzdar

Writer, Producer and Editor: Ibrahim Abdou

Host & Concept Design: Refqa Abu-Remaileh

Research Support: Heba Tebakhi

Sound Technician: Firas Hindawi

Sound Editing & Design: Ziad Fayed

VO Recording: Gianpiero Tari

Music: “The Astounding Eyes of Rita” by Anouar Brahem (ECM Records, 2009)