MK 2018

Naji Al Ali | Palestine

Naji Salim Hussein Al Ali was born between the cities of Nazareth and Tiberias in the northeastern Galilee of Palestine in 1936, in the Shajara village. After the 1948 Nakba he saught refuge with his familyin Lebanon, settling into the Ein El-Hilweh refugee camp near Saida. He later joined the vocational department at a technical institute in Tripoli, Lebanon, from which he graduated in 1953. 

His artistic tendencies began to emerge when he wrote and acted in short plays with his colleagues in the camp and at some clubs. These tendencies and talents only grew as he left Lebanon and lived abroad, far from his family and friends. 

From 1957-1959, Naji worked as technician in a Saudi Arabian company in Jeddah, returning to Lebanon to join the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts in 1960, but continuous prosecutions and arrests by Lebanese Intelligence Forces disrupted his studies. A year after moving back to Lebanon, he met the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, and published four drawings in “Al Horiyya” magazine in Beirut, with an article highlighting his talent in September 1961. He then worked as a drawing teacher at the Jafari College in Tyr for a couple of years, until leaving to Kuwait to work with “Al-Tali’ah” magazine, affiliated with the Arab Nationalist Movement since 1963. While working for the magazine, he illustrated Ghassan Kanafani’s novel “Slaves or the Dead Red Lotus.”

 Naji worked at several magazines and newspapers between Kuwait and Lebanon, including the weekly magazine “Al Horiyya”, Lebanese daily “Al-Yawm” and the weekly “Al-Tali’ah”. In 1968, he started working in the Kuwaiti daily “Al-Seyassah”, and in 1969, he created Handala, who became his signature character. 

He joined the Lebanese daily “Assafir” when it was founded in 1974. Then, in 1976, 1983, and 1985, he published three books that included a selection of his drawings. He won the first prize for the “Settlement Bus” at the Arab Cartoonists’ Exhibition in 1979, and in the same year became Secretary General of the Arab Cartoonists’ Association. His “Four Mirrors” painting won the first prize in the second Arab cartoonists’ exhibition a year later. 

Naji Al ALi stayed in Beirut during the 1982 Israeli siege and invasion, during which time he drew for “Assafir” and “Al Maaraka” newspaper. In 1983 he joined the Kuwaiti daily “Al Qabas”, and at around the same time, worked with several Arab newspapers and magazines, including the UAE daily “Al Khaleej”, “Al Azmina al Arabiyya” magazine, “Al Mawqaf Al Arabi”, and the Lebanese “Al Shiraa.”

 The artist held his first exhibition in Kuwait in 1985 upon invitation from the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters, after which he participated in several exhibitions in a number of Arab and non-Arab countries. 

After being expelled from Kuwait in 1985, he moved to London to work for “Al Qabas International.” He was shot in London two years later, on the 22nd of July 1987, and remained in hospital until he passed on the 29th of August 1987.

 The Japanese newspaper “Asahi” listed him as one of the top ten cartoonists in the world. Additionally, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers awarded him the “Golden Pen of Freedom” in Rome, 1988, on the grounds that “Naji is one of the greatest cartoonists.” Dozens of books, articles, and studies, as well as a number of university theses, movies, and TV films portrayed his life and work. Many newspapers and magazines continue to publish his caricatures in Arab and international capitals.