Basman Eldirawi (also published as Basman Derawi) is a physiotherapist and a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza in 2010. Inspired by an interest in music, movies, and people with special needs, he contributes dozens of stories to the online platform We Are Not Numbers.

His brother, Bassem Hussen Al Diwari, is a playwright and theatre artist.

Poetry by Basman Eldirawi

The Future of Gaza (ArabLit)

The Moment (ArabLit)

This Bread Was Born, This Bread Was Killed (ArabLit)

You Don’t Need Your Glasses, Santa, tr. Tala Ladki (ArabLit)

The Idea Has Failed, tr. Elete N-F & Sarah Lasoye (ArabLit)

I Am Not Jesus (ArabLit)

From Gaza, Answering Darwish (ArabLit)

Basman’s work is also featured in the collection And Still We Write and in the “Gaza! Gaza! Gaza!“ issue of ArabLit Quarterly.

To the question, “to whom do you address your poems?” Basman said: “The world, to God, to my friends I lost, to my friends who are still fighting in Gaza, to Eman and her family, to Gaza, to Al Shifa Hospital where I had my internship as a physiotherapist, to my patients, to my place of work in the north of Gaza, to its sea and to the beach where I’d sit with family and friends, to the songs that always remind me of my memories in Gaza, to my house and my stuff left there, to survival, to the war, to death.”

Find Basman on Twitter at @basmanprince.

Donate to Basman and his brother’s GoFundMe.