Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was born in the village of al-Birwa, in
the Galilee, Palestine. He became a refugee at age seven. He worked
as a journalist and editor in Haifa and left to study in Moscow in
1970. His exilic journey took him to Cairo, Beirut, Tunis, Paris,
Amman, and Ramallah, where he settled in 1995. He is one of the
most celebrated and revered poets in the Arab world. He published
more than thirty books, and his poetry has been translated into
thirty-five languages. Darwish was named a Knight of the Order of
Arts and Letters by France in 1993, was awarded the Lannan Cultural
Freedom Prize in 2001, the Prince Claus Awardin 2004, and the Cairo
Prize for Arabic Poetry in 2007.
Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi poet, novelist, and translator. His
co-translation of Darwish's poetry was nominated for the PEN
Translation Prize in 2004. He is the author of The Baghdad Blues,
I'jaam An Iraqi Rhapsody, and The Pomegranate Alone. He is
Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature at New York University.
Winner of 2012 ALTA National Translation Award
(Mahmoud) Darwish's later poems are long, open-ended, traveling far
in time and space, balancing many seemingly incongruous elements,
moving in one line from the quotidien to the epic... His poetry is
polyphonic, containing the voices of lovers, enemies, parents,
former selves. The poet's own identity often gently disintegrates
or splits...His humanity, (Darwish) argued, was safeguarded by
acknowledging the humanity of his enemy. —New York Review of
Books
"No list on Palestinian literature is complete without the
acclaimed poet Mahmoud Darwish . . . In the Presence of Absence is
a fascinating piece of prose, with an aging Darwish reflecting on
his youth and tracing the journey that his life will take him,
infused with the poetic voice for which Darwish is renowned."
—Esquire
Beautiful... inescapably lyrical. —Bookslut
Mahmoud Darwish [is] perhaps the foremost Palestinian poet of last
century. —Tablet
There are two maps of Palestine that politicians will never manage
to forfeit: the one kept in the memories of Palestinian refugees,
and that which is drawn by Darwish’s poetry. —Anton Shammas
Then came silence. Mahmoud Darwish began to read. We did not know a
word of Arabic, but we heard his voice reach out and sink deep down
to pluck the strings of the Palestinian soul. It was a magical
night in Ramallah, the magician, Mahmoud Darwish, whose spell was
cast the way it has been through ages--simply by being that elusive
archetype, much envied and feared by power—a poet at ease with,
because attuned to, his own people. —Wole Soyinka
Mahmoud Darwish is one of the greatest poets of our time. In his
poetry Palestine becomes the map of the human soul. —Elias
Khoury
Darwish is the premier poetic voice of the Palestinian people...
lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and
elegant--and never anything less than free—what he would dream for
all his people. —Naomi Shihab Nye
[A] unique achievement... It offers costly wisdoms from a life
journey, rendered in the opaque lyricism of Darwish's poetry...His
is the voice of dispossessed Palestine but its longings, including
sheer lust, are universal. This book overflows with resonant lines
and questions... It is a book for life. —The Independent
"[Darwish's] prose is rich with metaphor and sensual, even sexual,
imagery, but the pain of a man who was denied the ability to live
freely within the land of his birth, and witnessed, by the time of
his death in 2008, the impact of sixty years of occupation and
conflict on the Palestinian people, is never far from the surface .
. . Darwish’s meditative, incantatory prose is neither elusive nor
intimidating. He writes from the heart and with the heart his words
are best met." — Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts
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