Born in Jerusalem, Palestine, Najwan Darwish is one of the foremost contemporary Arab poets. He has published eight poetry books in Arabic and his work has been translated into over twenty languages. His second major collection in English translation, Exhausted on the Cross, was published by NYRB Poets in 2021, with a foreword by Raúl Zurita, and was the winner of the Sarah Maguire Prize (2022). Darwish lives between Haifa and Jerusalem.
Kareem James Abu-Zeid is the translator of Exhausted on the Cross by Najwan Darwish (NYRB Poets, 2021), among other titles. The recipient of awards, fellowships, honors, and residencies from PEN America, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry magazine, the Fulbright Program, the Lannan Foundation, and the Banff Centre for the Arts, he lives outside of Santa Fe.