Mahmoud Darwish (Arabic: محمود درويش‎, romanized: maḥmūd darwīsh, 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine as a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile. He has been described as incarnating and reflecting "the tradition of the political poet in Islam, the man of action whose action is poetry." He also served as an editor for several literary magazines in Palestine.

Cameron Leslie (born 17 January 1990) is a New Zealand paralympics swimmer and wheelchair rugby player. Leslie was a student at Auckland University of Technology and has a quadruple limb deficiency. He won the gold medal in the men's 150 m individual medley at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympics. In 2013, he won the gold medal in the men's 150 m individual medley, and a bronze medal in the men's 50 m backstroke, at the IPC Swimming World Championships in Montreal. In 2019, he won the gold medal in the men's 50 m backstroke at the World Para Swimming Championships in London. Leslie was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2009 New Year's Honours, for services to swimming. Of Māori descent, Leslie affiliates to the Ngāpuhi iwi.