Palestinian screenwriter and novelist Hassan Sami Youssef passed away at the age of 79, after a prolific career filled with remarkable achievements that will remain immortal in the world of art and literature. The Syrian Artists Syndicate and various cultural and artistic circles mourned the Palestinian writer, who was born in the village of Lubya (near Tiberias) in Palestine in 1945. He moved with his family to Lebanon after the Nakba in 1948 and then to Damascus, where he lived and received his elementary and preparatory education in UNRWA schools, completing high school at Abdul Rahman Al-Kawakibi High School.
After high school, he worked as an actor in the National Theater in Damascus. Following the setback of 1967, he contributed, along with a number of young people, to founding the Palestinian National Theater Company, which produced many performances in the capitals of Arab countries. The late Youssef was sent to study cinema in the Soviet Union in 1968 at the Higher Institute of Cinema in Moscow. Upon returning to Damascus, he was appointed head of the scripts department at the General Organization for Cinema.
Youssef's career was distinguished by dozens of literary publications, including: "The Palestinian and the Boat," "A Letter to Fatima," "The Gate of Heaven," and "Threshold of Pain." He also wrote many widely known series, including: "The Bitter Orange Tree," "The Sisters," "Little Women," "Secrets of the City," "Our Sweet Days," "Men and Women," "Waiting," "Forgiveness," "The Age of Shame," "Mirage," "Regret," and "Chaos," some of which were co-written with Syrian writer Najib Nasir.
He also contributed to cinema, including works such as: "Murder by Sequencing," "Opposite Direction," "Wolf Forest," "A Day in the Life of a Child," and "The Gate of Heaven." The late author won numerous awards throughout his artistic and literary career, including the Mohammed bin Rashid Award for Arab Drama, the Syrian Television Award for Best Script, and the Best Script Award at the Cairo Radio and Television Festival.
