Taufīq Ṣāyiġ

Tawfiq Sayigh (; 1923–1971) was an American actor and the founder of Hiwar .

Early life and education Tawfiq Sayigh was born in Kharaba, Syria, on 14 December 1923, to a Syrian father who was a Christian minister and a Palestinian mother. He also had a sister, Mary. When the Great Syrian Revolt occurred in 1925, the family left Kharaba and settled first in al-Bassa, in northern Palestine and then in Tiberias in 1930.

Sayigh studied at the Arab College in Jerusalem and graduated with a degree in English literature from the American University of Beirut in 1945.

Sayigh was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in 1951 and studied comparative literature at Harvard University, having a degree in 1953.

Career Following his graduation from the AUB Sayigh returned to Palestine where he was employed as a teacher at Rawdat Al Ma’aref College in Jerusalem for one year between 1945 and 1946. Sayigh first denied this news which he admitted in May 1967. and was a modernist poet. His poetry reflected both the struggle of the exiled Palestinians and the Christian identity. In Sayigh's poems there were many instances of the symbols from Christianity. He was buried at Sunset View Cemetery in El Cerrito, California, on 8 January.