Photographs of the late poet Samih Al-Qasem and the late novelist Emile Habibi are now part of the Museum’s Family Album project. The Museum team has digitised 54 photographs from Al-Qasem’s family album that document the poet’s life. Emile Habibi’s photograph collection also reveals moving stories that have inspired his literary works. One of the photographs, for example, shows the novelist’s mother, who inspired his first novel The Story of the Mandelbaum Gate, a gate separating East and West Jerusalem. Habibi wrote the novel after accompanying his mother to the Gate in 1954 on a visit to his uncle. These photographs are part of a digital archive of around 6,000 photographs collected and documented by the Family Album project.

Left: A photo from Emile Habibi’s family album. © The Palestinian Museum
Right: A photo of poet Mahmoud Darwish (left) standing next to poet Abdul Karim Al-Karami and lawyer Hanna Naqara. Moscow, 1969. From the family album of Watan Mohammad Samih Al-Qasem. © The Palestinian Museum