Samira Azzam

Throughout the 1960s, much of her efforts were put toward drafting a novel, which she reportedly destroyed upon hearing of the Arabs' defeat during the Six-Day War in 1967. The novel was titled Sinai Without Borders. Two volumes of her stories were published posthumously.

On 24 December 1959, Azzam married Adib Yousef Hasan. They returned to Iraq for a short period of time. However, they had to leave when the monarchy fell, and the new republic accused Azzam's broadcasts of being hostile towards it. Upon her return to Beirut, she began writing for numerous women's publications as well as translating English classics into Arabic. She became extremely politically active in the 1960s.

Much of Azzam's writing revolved around the Palestinian experience in the diaspora. Major themes in her works included precision and control; her stories often revolved around a specific action or choice. (Jayyusi) Azzam's first collection of short stories, titled Little Things, was published in 1954. Throughout this collection, characters struggle and, in many cases, fail in their endeavors, often because they lack a sense of identity or purpose. In her story "Because He Loved Them," Azzam portrays a hardworking farmer who loses everything in the 1948 exodus. He is then reduced to peasant status, turning to alcohol for comfort. The story ends with him murdering his wife in a drunken rage. Throughout the story, he is not characterized as evil or vengeful, but rather a man of noble character who was so affected by losing everything he loved that he made poor decisions.

Samira Azzam was born into a Christian Orthodox family in Acre, in Mandatory Palestine. She attended elementary school in Acre and high school in Haifa at "Takmilyet Al-Rahibat." before becoming a school teacher at age 16. During this time, she began writing articles for a Palestinian newspaper under the alias “Coastal Girl.” In 1948, Azzam and her family were relocated to Lebanon due to the 1948 Palestinian exodus. Azzam left her family after two years to become the headmistress of an all girls school in Iraq. It was in Iraq that she began her career as a radio broadcaster for the Near East Asia Broadcasting Company. First, she wrote for the program “Women's Corner” before being moved to Beirut by the broadcasting station, where she was the head of the program “With the Morning.”. Her voice became a regular presence in the lives of many Arabs, making her writing all the more powerful.

Samira Azzam (13 September 1927 – 8 August 1967) was a Palestinian writer, broadcaster, and translator known for her collections of short stories. In 1948, Azzam fled Palestine with her husband and family in the Nakba. Her collections of stories are renowned for examining the entirety of the Palestinian identity during this time period. Her first set of short stories, Small Things, was published in 1954, and examined women's role in Palestinian society. After returning to Beirut in 1959, she examined other Palestinian social structures such as the class hierarchy. She published two more collections of short stories during her life, The Big Shadow and The Clock and the Man. Throughout her writing, she does not cast blame as to the cause of these social structures, but rather creates plot lines that characterize these different sub-cultures within Palestinian society, relating them to political situation of this historical period. Therefore, her writing creates a very holistic view of Palestinian national identity during this time in history.