Samir El-Youssef is a writer, commentator and peace activist who graduated with an MA Philosophy from Birkbeck in 2000. The Palestinian writer and critic was born in 1965 in Rashidia, a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, emigrated to Cyprus in 1989 and since 1990 has lived in London.  

He writes in both Arabic and English, and some of his work has been translated into German, Italian, Greek and Norwegian. Among his books is one co-written with the Israeli writer Etgar Keret, Gaza Blues: Different Stories.