In 1952, Hussein began writing poetry.[1] Two years later, he published his first poetry collection.[2] In 1957, he published a small volume in Nazareth called Ma'a al-Fajr ("At Dawn").[8] In 1958, he became the literary editor of Al Fajr, a monthly Arabic-language newspaper of the Histadrut labor union and Al Musawwar, a weekly newspaper.[4][8] At the time, the Iraqi Jewish critic Eliahu Khazum described Hussein as "the most promising Arab poet in Israel", the "only one interested in the study of Hebrew" and who surprised an audience of Jewish and Arab writers by "reciting his first poem he wrote in Hebrew".[5] That year he published another Arabic volume called Sawarikh ("Missiles").[8]