Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish محمود درويش
File:Mahmood darwish.jpg
Born	13 March 1941 Al-Birwa
Died	August 9, 2008(2008-08-09) (aged 67) Houston, Texas, United States
Occupation(s)	Poet, writer

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a respected Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output. In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile. The poet Naomi Shihab Nye has commented about Darwish's work,

"Darwish is the Essential Breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging...."

Biography

Darwish was born in the village of al-Birwa, in the Galilee, east of Acre. He was the second child of Salim and Houreyyah Darwish. His father was a Muslim landowner. His mother was illiterate, but his grandfather taught him to read. After the establishment of the State of Israel, the family fled to Lebanon. A year later, they returned to the Acre area, which was now part of Israel, and settled in Deir al-Asad. Darwish attended high school in Kafr Yasif, two kilometers north of Jadeidi. He eventually moved to Haifa. He published his first book of poetry, Asafir bila ajniha, at the age of nineteen. Darwish left Israel in the early 1970s to study in the USSR. From there he traveled to Egypt and Lebanon. When he joined the PLO in 1973, he was banned from reentering Israel. In 1995, he returned to attend the funeral of his colleague, Emile Habibi. During the visit, he received a permit from the Israeli authorities to remain in the country. He lived in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Darwish was twice married and divorced. His first wife was the writer Rana Kabbani. In the mid-1980s, he married an Egyptian translator, Hayat Heeni. He had no children. Darwish had a history of heart problems: After a heart attack in 1984, he underwent heart surgery. In 1998, he was operated on again.

Literary career

Darwish published over thirty volumes of poetry and eight books of prose. He was editor of Al-Jadid, Al-Fajr, Shu'un Filistiniyya and Al-Karmel (1981). He was recognized internationally for his poetry, which focuses on his strong affection for Palestine and his disdain for the State of Israel. His work won numerous awards, and has been published in 20 languages. In 1964, he wrote his famous poem Identity Card: "Record! I am an Arab/ And my identity card is number fifty thousand/ I have eight children/ And the ninth is coming after a summer/ Will you be angry?/ Record!/ I am an Arab/ I have a name without a title/ Patient in a country/ Where people are enraged . . ."

Darwish wrote in Arabic, but spoke English, French and Hebrew. He cited Rimbaud and Ginsberg as literary influences. Darwish admired the Hebrew poet Yehuda Amichai, but described his poetry as a "challenge to me, because we write about the same place. He wants to use the landscape and history for his own benefit, based on my destroyed identity. So we have a competition: who is the owner of the language of this land? Who loves it more? Who writes it better?"

In March 2000, Yossi Sarid, the Israeli education minister, proposed that some of Darwish's poems be included in the Israeli high school curriculum. Prime Minister Ehud Barak rejected the proposal on the grounds that Israel was "not ready."

Political activism

Darwish was a member of Communist Party of Israel, Rakah, before leaving the country for Beirut. There, he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned since for his writing and political activities, and in 1970 he left for Moscow. Later, he moved to Cairo in 1971 where he worked for AL-Ahram daily newspaper. In Beirut, in 1973, he edited the monthly Shu'un Filistiniyya (Palestinian Affairs) and worked as a director in the Palestinian Research Center of the PLO and joined the organisation. In the wake of the Lebanon War, Darwish wrote the political poems Qasidat Bayrut (1982) and Madih al-zill al'ali(1983). Darwish was elected to the PLO Executive Committee in 1987. In 1988 he wrote a manifesto intended as the Palestinian people's declaration of independence. In 1993, after the Oslo accords, Darwish resigned from the PLO Executive Committee. Darwish has consistently demanded a "tough and fair" stand in negotiations with Israel.

In 1988, one of his poems, Passers Between the Passing Words, was discussed in the Knesset . He was accused of demanding that the Jews leave Israel, although he claimed he meant the West Bank and Gaza: "So leave our land/Our shore, our sea/Our wheat, our salt, our wound."

Despite his criticism of both Israel and the Palestinian leadership, Darwish believed that peace was attainable. "I do not despair," he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "I am patient and am waiting for a profound revolution in the consciousness of the Israelis. The Arabs are ready to accept a strong Israel with nuclear arms - all it has to do is open the gates of its fortress and make peace."

Musical arrangements

Many of Darwish's poems were set to music by Arab composers, among them Marcel Khalife, Majida El Roumi and Ahmad Qa'abour. Khalife was accused of blasphemy and insulting religious values because a song entitled I am Yusuf, oh my father based on Darwish's lyrics, cited a verse from the Qur'an. In this poem, Darwish shared the pain of Yusuf (Joseph) who was rejected by his brothers, who fear him because he is too handsome and kind. "Oh my father, I am Yusuf / Oh father, my brothers neither love me nor want me in their midst". The story of Joseph is an allegory for the rejection of the Palestinians.

Films

In 1997 a documentary entitled Mahmoud Darwish was produced by French TV directed by French-Israeli director Simone Bitton.

Quotations

"I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet."

"We should not justify suicide bombers. We are against the suicide bombers, but we must understand what drives these young people to such actions. They want to liberate themselves from such a dark life. It is not ideological, it is despair."

Prizes

• The Lotus Prize (1969; from the Union of Afro-Asian Writers)
• Lenin Peace Prize (1983; from the USSR)
• The Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (1993; from France)
• The Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom (2001)
• Prince Claus Awards (2004)
• "Bosnian stećak" (2007)
• Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings (2007)

Death

Mahmoud Darwish died on August 9, 2008 at the age of 67 from complications after heart surgery on August 6, 2008 at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. Early reports of his death in the Arabic press indicate that Darwish asked in his will to be buried in Palestine. Three locations have been suggested; his home village of al-Birwa, the neighboring village Jadeida, where some of Darwish's family still resides or in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning to honor Darwish.

Published work

Poetry

• Asafir bila ajniha (Wingless birds), 1960

• Awraq Al-Zaytun (Leaves of olives), 1964

• Ashiq min filastin (A lover from Palestine), 1966

• Akhir al-layl (The end of the night), 1967

• Yawmiyyat jurh filastini (Diary of a Palestinian wound), 1969

• Habibati tanhad min nawmiha (My beloved awakens), 1969

• al-Kitabah 'ala dhaw'e al-bonduqiyah (Writing in the light of the gun), 1970

• al-'Asafir tamut fi al-jalil (Birds are Dying in Galilee), 1970

• Mahmoud Darwish works, 1971. Two volumes

• Mattar na'em fi kharif ba'eed (Light rain in a distant autumn) 1971

• Uhibbuki aw la uhibbuki (I love you, I love you not), 1972

• Jondiyyun yahlum bi-al-zanabiq al-baidaa' (A soldier dreaming of white lilies), 1973

• Complete Works, 1973. Now al-A'amal al-jadida (2004) and al-A'amal al-oula (2005).

• Muhawalah raqm 7 (Attempt number 7), 1974

• Tilka suratuha wa-hadha intihar al-ashiq (That's her image, and that's the suicide of her lover), 1975

• Ahmad al-za'tar, 1976

• A'ras (Weddings), 1977

• al-Nasheed al-jasadi (The music of human flesh), 1980. Joint work

• Qasidat Bayrut (Ode to Beirut), 1982

• Madih al-zill al-'ali (A eulogy for the tall shadow), 1983

• Hissar li-mada'eh al-bahr, 1984

• Victims of a Map, 1984. Joint work with Samih al-Qasim and Adonis in English.

• Sand and Other Poems, 1986

• Hiya ughniyah, hiya ughniyah (It's a song, it's a song), 1985

• Ward aqal (Fewer roses), 1985

• Ma'asat al-narjis, malhat al-fidda (Tragedy of daffodils, comedy of silver), 1989

• Ara ma oreed (I see what I want), 1990

• Ahad 'asher kaukaban (Eleven planets), 1992

• Limaza tarakt al-hissan wahidan (Why did you leave the horse alone?), 1995. English translation 2006 by Jeffrey Sacks (ISBN 0976395010)

• Psalms, 1995. A selection from Uhibbuki aw la uhibbuki, translation by Ben Bennani

• Sareer El-Ghariba (Bed of a stranger), 1998

• Then Palestine, 1999 (with Larry Towell, photographer, and Rene Backmann)

• Jidariyya (Mural), 2000

• The Adam of Two Edens: Selected Poems, 2001

• Halat Hissar (State of siege), 2002

• La ta'tazer 'amma fa'alt (Don't apologize for what you did), 2003

• Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems, 2003. Translations by Munir Akash, Caroyln Forché and others

• al-A'amal al-jadida (The new works), 2004. A selection of Darwish's recent works

• al-A'amal al-oula (The early works), 2005. Three volumes, a selection of Darwish's early works

• Ka-zahr el-lawz aw ab'ad (Same as almond flowers or farther), 2005

Prose

• Shai'on 'an al-wattan (Something about the homeland), 1971

• Wada'an ayatuha al-harb, wada'an ayuha al-salaam (Farwell, war, farwell, peace), 1974

• Yawmiyyat al-hozn al-'aadi (Diary of the usual sadness), 1973

• Dhakirah li-al-nisyan (Memory for Forgetfulness), 1987. English translation 1995 by Ibrahim Muhawi

• Fi wasf halatina (Describing our condition), 1987

• al-Rasa'il (The Letters), 1990. Joint work with Samih al-Qasim

• Aabiroon fi kalamen 'aaber (Bypassers in bypassing words), 1991

• Fi hadrat al-ghiyab (In the presence of absence), 2006

External links

• Darwish poems
• Official website
• Darwish biography
• Listen to Mahmoud Darwish
• 2002 Article on Darwish from The Progressive
• Short biography, two poems and one exerpt at Fence
• Five Darwish poems at Poemhunter.com
• Seven Darwish poems at a Geocities fansite
• Poem of Darwish in a light projection of artist Jenny Holzer in London
• Poem by Darwish at the Virginia Quarterly Review
• Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre