Hussein Jamil Barghouthi, also spelled Barghouti, ( May 5, 1954 – May 1, 2002, ) was a Palestinian poet, writer, essayist, critic, lyricist, playwright and philosopher, born in the village of Kobar in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate. Barghouthi lived his childhood between Kobar, where his mother lived, and Beirut, where his father worked. An outcast since childhood, seen and treated by his society as different and distant for being unique, he found his friends to be the rocks and trees of his village, and the words of his language. He was misunderstood by his surroundings, and was too different from his society by the time he reached his last year in highschool, when he read out loud one of his poems for the first time in a poetry contest. The contest was held by Jordanian education ministry, during the Jordanian custody of the West Bank, and Barghouthi was deprived of 1st place because the ministry of education thought he had stolen a poem from some famous author. "Ignorance is not an excuse" replied Barghouthi, in front of the live audience. Barghouthi got his high school diploma from Amir Hassan School in Birzeit.
He went on to continue his studies in Budapest, Hungary, studying Political Science and State Finance there for 5 years. After returning to Palestine, he studied at Birzeit University and obtained his BA English literature from in 1983, and taught there for one year before leaving to obtain both his M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1992) in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington - Seattle. He returned to Palestine to become a professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University, and went on to work for three years in Al-Quds University as a professor of Literature Critique and Theater in 1997, during which he was a founding member of the Palestinian “House of Poetry” and Publishing Manager in a couple of literature magazines.
Barghouthi died on May 1, 2002, in Ramallah Hospital, after a long struggle with cancer.
Works
The various and diverse works of Hussein Barghouthi include novels, poetry, autobiography, critique, folklore, song lyrics, theater and cinema script, and many intellectual research and studies scattered in newspapers, books and magazines. Only two of his works were translated, both into French by Marianne Weiss, which are “The Blue Light” and “I’ll be among the almonds”. His top works include:
"The Blue Light" Barghouthi wrote his masterpiece, “The blue light” (2001), on his experience of living with the unorthodox, outcast and “mad” people of the streets of Seattle, frequenting at “The Grand Illusion” cinema, “The Blue Moon” bar and “The Last Exit” café, drawn to them by their names. A book that levitates the standards of any reader, in which Barghouthi describes his journey with Barry, a Sufi Whirling Dervish of Konyan origin who left his academic life and homeland to become a “homeless madman, or any other word we use to describe those we don’t understand”. The book is an exploration of Hussein's madness and spiritual paradox, and the confluence of the “mountain child and the sea”, the two opposite poles of his spirit; A book similar to the works of America's Beat Generation. The book was translated to French in the title of "Lumière bleue", by Marianne Weiss in 2004. An English translation by Fady Joudah was publishded by Seagull Books in 2023.
"The Third Bank of The Jordan River" He wrote his book “The third bank of the Jordan River”, published first in 1984, on his journey in Europe, describing his mental state at the time, that was edging both reality and insanity and not settling in either. Making the Jordan River an analogy, he uses it to explain that while there are two banks to the river of life, homeland and exile, there are some people destined to live in the virtual third bank; The bank of spiritualism, thought, passion, pain, love, magnitude, madness and poetry. A book that takes you on a trip, and might bring you to tears, and make you fall in love with it.