Taha Muhammad Ali (1931-2011) was an Arab Israeli autodidact who sold souvenirs by day and by night studied classical Arabic texts, American fiction, English romantic poets, Chekhov and Maupassant. Born in the rural Galilee, Muhammad Ali became a refugee when his village, Saffuriyya, was destroyed in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Beginning in the 1950s, Muhammad Ali published short stories in Arabic and Hebrew publications, and he presented his poetry at the Jerusalem International Poetry Festival, the Geraldine R. Dodge Festival, and at colleges and universities in the United States. Audiences worldwide have been moved by Muhammad Ali’s poems, with their political complexity, bittersweet humor and – above all – humanity.