Palestinian poet Darwish to be buried Wednesday
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry encapsulated the Palestinian cause, will be buried in the West Bank on Wednesday, a day later than planned, Palestinian officials said.
The funeral had initially been scheduled for Tuesday.
The 67-year-old writer died on Saturday from complications following heart surgery in a U.S. hospital in Houston, Texas.
Officials in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's office said the funeral had been put back one day because of a delay in releasing Darwish's body in the United States.
The funeral in the West Bank city of Ramallah will be the first sponsored by the Palestinian Authority since leader Yasser Arafat died in 2004.
The poet, born in territory now Israel, had made his home in Ramallah since returning in the 1990s from a long exile during which he rose to prominence in Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Several of his books were translated into Israel's vernacular, Hebrew, though the nationalist message of his work was largely shunned in the Jewish state, where a plan in 2000 to teach his poetry in state schools was quickly shelved. (Reporting by Mohammed Assadi; Writing by Adam Entous; Editing by Richard Williams)
