Spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation in the Arab-Israeli peace talks and later chair of a human rights group in the West Bank and Gaza, Hanan Mikhail Ashrawi (born 1946), a professor of English literature and a political activist, won international recognition for her articulate defense of Palestinian national rights. Her innate eloquence is further manifested by her literary accomplishments.

Hanan Mikhail Ashrawi was born October 8, 1946, in Nablus, one of the big cities of what was then central Palestine. The youngest of five children--all female--Hanan and the rest of the Mikhails moved around quite a bit during her childhood, mainly due to the 1948 war of Israeli independence and to demands placed on her father, a physician. From Nablus, her family moved to the warm city of Tiberias in the north where they remained until Israel became a state in 1948. With most Palestinian Arabs of that part of Palestine--now Israel--fleeing the...