Early Life
Al-Qasim was born in 1939 in the city of az-Zarqa in northern Jordan while his father served in the Arab Legion of King Abdullah. He came from a Druze family from the town of Rameh in the Upper Galilee. He attended primary school there and then later graduated from secondary school in Nazareth. His family did not flee Rame during the Palestinian exodus (Nakba) of 1948. In his book About Principles and Art, he explains,
While I was still at primary school the Palestinian tragedy occurred. I regard that date as the date of my birth, because the first images I can remember are of the 1948 events. My thoughts and images spring from the number 48'.
Read more about this topic: Samih Al-Qasim
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