The Palestinian national poet and one of the most important Arabic-language poets of the 20th century. Darwish wrote exile as the universal human condition and Palestine as its most acute expression. "Identity Card," written when he was 22, was broadcast from Israeli radio stations by Arab Israelis and became an anthem of resistance: "Write it down! I am an Arab." His late work (Mural, In the Presence of Absence) achieved a metaphysical grandeur that transcended politics entirely.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.