Mahmoud Darwish
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Mahmoud Darwish (Arabic: محمود درويش; born 1941 in Al-Birwah, British Mandate of Palestine) is a contemporary Palestinian poet and writer of prose. He has published over thirty volumes of poetry, eight books of prose and has served as the editor of several publications, including: Al-jadid, Al-fajr, Shu'un filistiniyya and Al-Karmel. He is internationally recognized for his poetry, which focuses on his strong affection for his lost homeland. His work has won numerous awards, and has been published in at least twenty-two languages. The majority of his work has not been translated into English.[1]
In the 1960s, Darwish joined the official Communist Party of Israel, the Rakah, but he is better known for his active work within the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). Once a member of PLO Executive Committee, he resigned from the Committee and broke with the PLO in 1993 to protest the continuation of the Oslo Accords.
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[edit] Early Life and Education
In 1941, Darwish was born in the demolished village of Al-Birwah, in the Galilee, east of Akko in Palestine, now Israel. He was the second child of a landowning Sunni Muslim family of five boys and three girls. After the establishment of Israel, the village was razed to the ground and he fled to Lebanon with his family and stayed there for a year, before secretly re-entering Israel and settling down in Deir al-Asad.
Darwish continued his primary education in Deir al-Asad, but remained in fear of being discovered and exiled by Israeli authorities. Later on, he obtained his secondary education in Kufur Yasif, two kilometers north of Jdeideh. Eventually, Darwish moved to Haifa. His first book of poetry was published when he was only nineteen (Asafir bila ajniha, Wingless birds, 1960). In 1964, he emerged as a major voice of the Palestinian resistance with Awraq Al-zaytun (Leaves of olives). His poetry became extremely popular, especially Identity Card written in 1964 :
"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 . . ."
[edit] Later life
After completing his secondary education, Darwish began publishing poetry and articles for newspapers and magazines such as Al-Itihad and Al-Jadid, where he later became the editor. In 1961, he joined secretly the Communist Party of Israel, the Rakah, and began working as a co-editor of Alfajr.
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 1981, he founded and became editor of the literary journal Al-Karmel.
During the summer of 1982, Beirut was bombed from 13 June to 12 August to drive the PLO out of the city. Darwish related the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli siege in Qasidat Bayrut (1982) and Madih al-zill al'ali(1983), later in the English version in Memory for Forgetfulness (1995). It led the poet to another exile to Cairo, Tunis and Paris. Darwish was elected to the PLO Executive Committee in 1987.
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 they should leave the West Bank and Gaza. The poet wrote :
"So leave our land
Our shore, our sea
Our wheat, our salt, our wound."
In 1993, after the Oslo accords, Mahmoud Darwish resigned from the PLO Executive Committee. Darwish has consistently demanded a tougher stand in negotiations with Israel for peace but a fair one.[2]
He continued as an editor for the Al-Karmel magazine, and lived in Paris before coming back to Palestine in 1995, entering on a visa to see his mother. He had the permission to return for the funeral of his friend Emile Habibi (a writer) and to visit his hometown but for only a few days. While in Palestine, he was issued a permit to stay in the country by the Israeli authorities. He lived in a central West Bank Palestinian town, Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat had his headquarters. The city became a battlefield in 2002.
Sarid, who was Israel's education minister, suggested in March 2000 that some of Darwish's poems should be included in the Israeli high school curriculum. But Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared, "Israel is not ready."
He currently resides between Ramallah and Amman.
[edit] Audio releases
Many of his poems have been set to music by artists such as Marcel Khalife, Majida El Roumi, and Ahmad Qa'abour. In 1996, 1999 and 2003, the well-known musician Marcel Khalife faced a trial for blasphemy and insulting religious values because of the song entitled I am Yusuf, oh my father which was based on Darwish's poem and cited a verse from the Qur'an. In this poem, Darwish shared the pain of Yusuf (Joseph) who was rejected by his brothers. "Oh my father, I am Yusuf / Oh father, my brothers neither love me nor want me in their midst".
[edit] Films
In 1997 a documentary entitled Mahmoud Darwish was produced by French TV directed by noted French-Israeli director Simone Bitton.
In 2004, Mahmoud Darwish asked a delegation of internationally-renowned writers and intellectuals to travel to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in part to participate in a cultural event in honour of the poet, but also to see first-hand life under Israeli military occupation. The delegation includes Russell Banks (U.S., author of The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction), Bei Dao (China, famous exiled poet), José Saramago (Portugal, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature), and Wole Soyinka (Nigeria, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature). The documentary is entitled Writers on the Borders, directed by Samir Abdallah and José Reynes, the narration is in many language, among them : English, French, Italian, Chinese, etc.
[edit] 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."
[edit] 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 Prize (2004)
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] 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. Printed on a regular basis ever since, with a new introduction, new additions, and sometimes elimination of some parts. Now substituted with 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
- 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
[edit] 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
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Darwish biography
- 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
[edit] References and notes
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