A River Dies of Thirst - Diaries

Mahmoud Darwish,Ruth Padel (Preface)

Saqi Books

2010

272 páginas

9h 4m

ISBN-13: 9780863566349

Mahmoud Darwish was often cited as the poetic voice of the Palestinian people. In the summer of 2006, as Israel attacked Gaza and Lebanon, Darwish recorded his observations and feelings in poems, meditations, fragments and journal entries. The result is this remarkable collection, his last to come out in Arabic.

At once lyrical and philosophical, questioning and wise, full of irony, resistance and play, Darwish’s musings on unrest and loss dwell on love and humanity. In these pages, myth and dream are inseparable from truth.

Mahmoud Darwish was born in 1942 in the village of al-Birweh in Galilee, Palestine. His family fled to Lebanon in 1948 when the Israeli Army destroyed their village. He published around thirty poetry and prose collections, which have been translated into thirty-five languages and founded and edited the prestigious literary review Al Karmel. Darwish was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize, the Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and the Prince Claus Fund Award. He died in August 2008.

Catherine teaches Arabic Language and Literature at St Andrews University in Scotland. She has translated a number of modern and contemporary authors from Arabic, including Yusuf Idris, Naguib Mahfouz, Hanan al-Shaykh, Adonis and Fu’ad al-Takarli.

Resenhas (1)

3.5 (Bom)

“On the seashore is a girl, and the girl has a family
and the family has a house. And the house has two windows and a door
And in the sea is a warship having fun
catching promenaders on the seashore:
Four, five, seven
fall down on the sand. And the girl is saved for a while
because a hazy hand
a divine hand of some sort helps her, so she calls out: ‘Father
Father! Let’s go home, the sea is not for people like us!’
Her father doesn’t answer, laid out on his shadow
windward of the sunset
blood in the palm trees, blood in the clouds
Her voice carries her higher and further than
the seashore. She screams at night over the land
The echo has no echo
so she becomes the endless scream in the breaking news
which was no longer breaking news
when
the aircraft returned to bomb a house with two windows and a door.”