Books by Mahmoud Darwish
Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems
Tilda Swinton’s Top Ten Favorite Books for T: The New York Times Style Magazine
Mahmoud Darwish is a literary rarity: at once critically acclaimed as one of the most important poets in the Arabic language, and beloved as the voice of his people. A legend in Palestine, his lyrics are sung by fieldworkers and schoolchildren. He has assimilated some of the world's oldest literary traditions while simultaneously struggling to open new possibilities for poetry. This collection spans Darwish's entire career, nearly four decades, revealing an impressive range of expression and form. A splendid team of translators has collaborated with the poet on these new translations, which capture Darwish's distinctive voice and spirit. Fady Joudah’s foreword, new to this edition, addresses Darwish’s enduring legacy following his death in 2008.
Copies
No copies available.
Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems
Mahmoud Darwish is a literary rarity: at once critically acclaimed as one of the most important poets in the Arabic language, and beloved as the voice of his people. He is a living legend whose lyrics are sung by fieldworkers and schoolchildren. He has assimilated some of the world's oldest literary traditions at the same time that he has struggled to open new possibilities for poetry. This collection spans Darwish's entire career, nearly four decades, revealing an impressive range of expression and form. A splendid team of translators has collaborated with the poet on these new translations, which capture Darwish's distinctive voice and spirit.
Copies
No copies available.
The Butterfly's Burden (English and Arabic Edition)
Mahmoud Darwish is the Essential Breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging, exquisitely tuned singer of images that invoke, link, and shine a brilliant light into the world’s whole heart. What he speaks has been embraced by readers around the worldhis in an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once discovered.”Naomi Shihab Nye
Mahmoud Darwish is the leading poet in the Arab world, an artist and activist who attracts thousands to his public readings.
The Butterfly's Burden combines the complete text of Darwish's two most recent full-length volumes, linked by the stunning memoir-witness poem A State of Siege.” Love poems, sonnets, journal-like distillations, and interlaced lyrics balance old literary traditions with new forms, highlighting loving reflections alongside bitter longing.
From Sonnet [V]
I touch you as a lonely violin touches the suburbs of the faraway place.
Patiently the river asks for its share of the drizzle.
And, bit by bit, a tomorrow passing in poems approaches
so I carry faraway’s land and it carries me on the road.
Mahmoud Darwish is the author of 30 books of poetry and prose, as well as the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. He has worked as a journalist, was director of the Palestinian Research Center, and lived in exile until his return to Palestine in 1996. He has received many international awards for his poetry.
Translator Fady Joudah is a physician based in Houston, Texas. His first book of poems received the Yale Younger Poets prize.
Copies
No copies available.
This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature
by Alice Walker, China Miéville, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Michael Palin, Pankaj Mishra, J.M. Coetzee, Chinua Achebe, Michael Ondaatje, Henning Mankell, Molly Crabapple, Teju Cole, Kamila Shamsie, Adam Foulds, Najwan Darwish, Linda Spalding, Mohammed Hanif, Suheir Hammad, Rachel Holmes, Deborah Moggach, Gillian Slovo, Mahmoud Darwish, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Ed Pavlic, Raja Shehadeh, Ru Freeman, Victoria Brittain, Susan Abulhawa, Jeremy Harding, Yasmin El-Rifae, Mercedes Kemp, Suad Amiry, Sabrina Mahfouz, John Horner, Bridget Keenan, Selma Dabbagh, Jehan Bseiso, Omar El-Khairy, Remi Kanazi, Maath Musleh, Ghada Karmi, Muiz, Nancy Kricorian, Nathalie Handal, Jamal Mahjoub
Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world.
The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power."
Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations.
Contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.
Copies
No copies available.
Mural
"The most celebrated writer of verse in the Arab world."
–Adam Shatz, The New York Times
Poetry from former national poet of Palestine, illustrated by original drawings by John Berger
Mahmoud Darwish was the Palestinian national poet. One of the greatest poets of the last half century, his work evokes the loss of his homeland and is suffused with the pain of dispossession and exile. His poems display a brilliant acuity, a passion for and openness to the world and, above all, a deep and abiding humanity. Here, his close friends John Berger and Rema Hammami present a beautiful new translation of two of Darwish’s later works. Illustrated with original drawings by John Berger, Mural is a testimony to one of the most important and powerful poets of our age.
Copies
-
$19.95
Mural
Poetry from former national poet of Palestine, illustrated by original drawings by John Berger
Mahmoud Darwish was the Palestinian national poet. One of the greatest poets of the last half century, his work evokes the loss of his homeland and is suffused with the pain of dispossession and exile. His poems display a brilliant acuity, a passion for and openness to the world and, above all, a deep and abiding humanity. Here, his close friends John Berger and Rema Hammami present a beautiful new translation of two of Darwish’s later works. Illustrated with original drawings by John Berger, Mural is a testimony to one of the most important and powerful poets of our age.
Copies
No copies available.
In the Presence of Absence
One of the most transcendent poets of his generation, Darwish composed this remarkable elegy at the apex of his creativity, but with the full knowledge that his death was imminent. Thinking it might be his final work, he summoned all his poetic genius to create a luminous work that defies categorization. In stunning language, Darwish’s self-elegy inhabits a rare space where opposites bleed and blend into each other. Prose and poetry, life and death, home and exile are all sung by the poet and his other. On the threshold of im/mortality, the poet looks back at his own existence, intertwined with that of his people. Through these lyrical meditations on love, longing, Palestine, history, friendship, family, and the ongoing conversation between life and death, the poet bids himself and his readers a poignant farewell.
Copies
No copies available.
Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (Literature of the Middle East)
One of the Arab world's greatest living poets uses the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the shelling of Beirut as the setting for this sequence of prose poems. Mahmoud Darwish vividly recreates the sights and sounds of a city under terrible siege. As fighter jets scream overhead, he explores the war-ravaged streets of Beirut on August 6th (Hiroshima Day).
Memory for Forgetfulness is an extended reflection on the invasion and its political and historical dimensions. It is also a journey into personal and collective memory. What is the meaning of exile? What is the role of the writer in time of war? What is the relationship of writing (memory) to history (forgetfulness)? In raising these questions, Darwish implicitly connects writing, homeland, meaning, and resistance in an ironic, condensed work that combines wit with rage.
Ibrahim Muhawi's translation beautifully renders Darwish's testament to the heroism of a people under siege, and to Palestinian creativity and continuity.
Copies
No copies available.
Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (Literature of the Middle East)
One of the Arab world's greatest poets uses the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the shelling of Beirut as the setting for this sequence of prose poems. Mahmoud Darwish vividly recreates the sights and sounds of a city under terrible siege. As fighter jets scream overhead, he explores the war-ravaged streets of Beirut on August 6th (Hiroshima Day).
Memory for Forgetfulness is an extended reflection on the invasion and its political and historical dimensions. It is also a journey into personal and collective memory. What is the meaning of exile? What is the role of the writer in time of war? What is the relationship of writing (memory) to history (forgetfulness)? In raising these questions, Darwish implicitly connects writing, homeland, meaning, and resistance in an ironic, condensed work that combines wit with rage.
Ibrahim Muhawi's translation beautifully renders Darwish's testament to the heroism of a people under siege, and to Palestinian creativity and continuity. Sinan Antoon’s foreword, written expressly for this edition, sets Darwish’s work in the context of changes in the Middle East in the past thirty years.
Copies
No copies available.
Journal of an Ordinary Grief
Winner of the 2011 PEN Translation Prize
A collection of autobiographical essays by one of the greatest poets to come from Palestine.
Indispensable reading for anyone interested in the roots and ramifications of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. Muhawi's own prose and meticulous footnotes are impeccable. An inspired and scholarly piece of research.
—Words Without Borders
“Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance,” writes Mahmoud Darwish. In these probing essays, Darwish, a voice of the Palestinian people and one of the most transcendent poets of his generation, interrogates the experience of occupation and the meaning of liberation.
Calling upon myth, memory, and language, these essays delve into the poet’s experience of house arrest, his encounters with Israeli interrogators, and the periods he spent in prison.
Meditative, lyrical, and rhythmic—Darwish gives absence a vital presence in these linked essays. Journal is a moving and intimate account of the loss of homeland and, for many, of life inside the porous walls of occupation—no ordinary grief.
Copies
No copies available.
If I Were Another: Poems
Winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Translation
Mahmoud Darwish was that rare literary phenomenon: a poet both acclaimed by critics as one of the most important poets in the Arab world and beloved by his readers. His language―lyrical and tender―helped to transform modern Arabic poetry into a living metaphor for the universal experiences of exile, loss, and identity. The poems in this collection, constructed from the cadence and imagery of the Palestinian struggle, shift between the most intimate individual experience and the burdens of history and collective memory.
Brilliantly translated by Fady Joudah, If I Were Another―which collects the greatest epic works of Darwish's mature years―is a powerful yet elegant work by a master poet that demonstrates why Darwish was one of the most celebrated poets of his time and was hailed as the voice and conscience of an entire people.
Copies
No copies available.
Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?
Mahmoud Darwish is one of the greatest poets of our time. In his poetry Palestine becomes the map of the human soul.
— Elias Khoury
The book tugs at the reader’s heart page after page, poem after poem, line after line, you cannot remain apathetic for a moment…
—Haaretz
At once an intimate autobiography and a collective memory of the Palestinian people, Darwish’s intertwined poems are collective cries, songs, and glimpses of the human condition.
Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? is a poetry of myth and history, of exile and suspended time, of an identity bound to his displaced people and to the rich Arabic language.
Darwish’s poems – specific and symbolic, simple and profound – are historical glimpses, existential queries, chants of pain and injustice of a people separated from their land.
Copies
No copies available.