Basman Derawi, Cairo

Basman Aldirawi (also published as Basman Derawi) is Illuminated Cities’ inaugural Fall 2024 Poetry of the Camps-Gaza Fellow. He is now part of the Illuminated Cities program team.

Basman 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/poems to the online platform We Are Not Numbers and other platforms including Vivamost, Mondoweiss, ArabLit, and Written Revolution. He has contributed to the Arabic poetry anthology, Gaza: Land of Poetry, 2021 and to the English anthology, Light in Gaza: Writing Born in Fire, 2022.

“I wish I could get my friends back. My sister and her family back. My Palestine back to freedom. I wish I could return time,” Basman Derawi stated. In his words, “I hope for this genocide to end now. I hope to witness the freedom of Palestine. I hope a child somewhere in Gaza won't know what a missile, bomb, a drone are. But for hope to come it needs hearts, tongues, and hands.”