Hasan Karmi

Hasan Karmi was born in Tulkarm, Palestine.[2] The son of a sharia court judge, Sheikh Sa'id al-Karmi, and He is the brother of the famous Arab poet Abd al-Karim al-Karmi. Hasan Karmi studied in a local Qur'anic school in Tulkarm and later attended English College in Jerusalem. He joined the British mandate government's education department and won two scholarships, in 1939 and 1945, to study at the Institute of Education in London.

Karmi and his family were forced to flee in the 1948 Nakba. They eventually settled in the neighbourhood of Golders Green, in London, England. Karmi joined the BBC Arabic Service and served as a broadcaster for nearly 40 years.[3] He was the creator, writer, and presenter of a weekly literary program called Qawlun ala Qawl (Saying on a Saying) devoted to Arabic poetry and proverbs.[4] The program was the longest running in the history of the BBC Arabic Service. For many years he also wrote a column in Huna London (London Calling), which the embassy in Saudi Arabia used to distribute on behalf of the BBC Arabic Service. In 1969 Karmi was awarded an MBE for services to the BBC.

Karmi was married to a Syrian woman, Amina, had one son, Ziyad, and two daughters, Siham and Ghada Karmi. He returned to the Middle East, to Jordan, in 1989 and spent his remaining years working on eleven dictionaries, one Arabic-English, the rest English-Arabic.

He died on 5 May 2007 in Amman, Jordan.

• Craig, Sir James (2007-05-14). "Letter: Hasan Karmi". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-05-18.
• Karmi, Ghada: In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story ISBN 1-85984-694-7 Verso 2002
• Llewellyn, Tim (2007-05-07). "Palestinian intellectual and broadcaster passionate about the suffering of his people". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
• Marwan Asmar; Remembering Hassan Al Karmi, the Intellectual I knew, Hackwriters.com
• Donald Macintyre; Hasan Karmi Broadcaster and lexicographer, 18 May 2007, The Independent