Summary
Palestinian poet, one of the two friends memorialised in the dedication of The Question of Palestine, who left Israel in 1966 and died in the United States in 1977.
Details
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Hussein was an ironic Palestinian poet who left Israel in 1966 and lived until his death in the United States; from him Said learned whatever he knows about life in Palestinian villages after 1948 (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.20 / printed p.xix).
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His generosity of spirit, openness and political honesty were his gifts to everyone he met; when he died a particularly wasteful death in 1977, he had already suffered too much for what he was, an independent, genuinely radical Palestinian (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.20 / printed p.xix).
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In Manna (spelled Rashid Husain there), he is the poet and journalist who was Mapam’s most prominent activist in its 1959 election propaganda against the communists, author of the now famous article “When History Grows Hungry”; the anticommunist propaganda fell on receptive ears and Mapam jumped to second place among Arab voters, ahead of Maki for the first time (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.288).
Related pages
The Question of Palestine, Edward Said, Farid Haddad, Nakba and Survival, Mapam