Born in the village of Shabtin in Northern Lebanon in 1948, Wadih Sa’adah spent his first twelve years in a place where, in his own words, “the people, fields, trees, rocks, birds and animals were one family”. In 1960 he moved to Beirut, and it was around this time that he first turned to poetry celebrating the community in Shabtin he was to leave behind. Then, at the age of fourteen, poetry became a way to cope with the loss of his father, who died during a house fire. Sa’adeh noted, “Everything was different, and I was filled with a profound feeling of desolation. It was at this time I began to experiment with poetry, perhaps to escape from this feeling. Whatever the reason, poetry became my companion.”