Born in Latroun, Palestine, in 1943, Nabil Anani is a key founder of the contemporary Palestinian art movement. He graduated in Fine Art from Alexandria University, Egypt, in 1969. On his return to Palestine, Anani began a career as an artist and a teacher-trainer at the UN College in Ramallah. He held his first exhibition in Jerusalem in 1972 and has since exhibited widely in solo and group shows in Europe, North America, the Middle East, North Africa and Japan. His works are held in many museums and private collections including the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), the Agha Khan Museum and the Jordanian National Museum. Anani is the co-author of a number of books on Palestinian arts and folklore, and was awarded the first Palestinian National Prize for Visual Art in 1997 by Yasser Arafat. He later became the head of the League of Palestinian Artists and played a key role in the establishment of the first International Academy of Fine Art in Palestine. In 2006, Anani was awarded the prestigious King Abdullah II Arab World Prize for Fine Art. He lives in Ramallah, Palestine. Mourid Barghouti is Palestine's leading contemporary poet, born in 1944 near Ramallah. He is the author of twelve books of poetry, the most recent of which is Midnight . Bashir Makhoul is a Palestinian artist and the newly-appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts in the UK.