Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and author. Born in 1941 in the former village of Al-Birwa, he wrote poetry in his adult years that spoke of the losses experienced by the Palestinian people. The themes in these poems, however, are universal – loneliness, exile, nostalgia, sorrow – and millions of people who read and speak the Arabic language hail him as a modern literary titan. Darwish died in 2008, following complications from a surgery performed in Houston, Texas.