Samir El-Youssef is Palestinian-British, born in Rashidia, a Palestinian refugee camp in the south of Lebanon, 1965, and lives in London since 1990.  
The author of 11 books of fiction, essays and poetry, he writes in Arabic and English and has contributed to many publications among which The Guardian, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Nizwa, The New Statesman and Index on Censorship. 
In 2004 he collaborated with Israeli Etgar Keret in publishing Gaza Blues, a collection of short fiction. 
In 2005 he won the PEN-Tucholsky Award for promoting the cause of peace and freedom of speech in the Middle East. 
In 2021 he collaborated with Palestinian poet Mohammed Tayseer in producing Gaza the Land of the Poem, an anthology of poems by 17 Gazan poets.