At the Brink of Death, he says:
I have nothing to lose —
I am free, I am close to the ultimate freedom,
My fortune’s in my hands.
Soon, I’ll give birth to my life —
Born free, with neither father nor mother,
I’ll choose sky-blue letters to write my name.
-— From “A State of Siege”, Mahmoud Darwish, Ramallah, January 2002, translated by Sarah Maguire and Sabry Hafez in “The Word” (http://www.al-kalimah.com/English/2007/January/Html/poetry/state.html).
NTERPRETER of the exile and hopes of the Palestinian people, the poet Mahmoud Darwish became a legend in his own time. He will be buried today in the West Bank city of Ramallah after the Palestinian Authority holds the equivalent of a state funeral to honor him. Born into a landowning Sunni Muslim family in Barweh, a village east of Acre, Darwish became a refugee when the Israelis occupied the village after the war of 1948. The experience of being uprooted deeply affected Darwish. Over the course of his lifetime, he moved from place to place. Moscow, Beirut and Cyprus were just a few of the stops in his life’s journey; but it was only Palestine that he ever considered home.
Darwish’s first collection of poetry appeared in 1960, when he was 19. With his second collection in 1964, “Awraq Al-Zaytun” (Leaves of Olives), he gained a reputation as one of the leading poets of the Palestinian resistance.
Darwish has described the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis as “a struggle between two memories”, and Ibrahim Muhawi, who has translated some of his work, has written that “his is a poetry of witnessing”. Many of Darwish’s poems have become even more popular after they were set to music.
Although he is no longer with us, Darwish can still be heard reciting his verse at www.mahmouddarwish.com/english/audio.htm. Darwish’s poetry has been translated into dozens of languages from the original Arabic. Two English translations by Fady Joudah, “In Jerusalem” (http://tsetso.blogspot.com/2007/07/palestinian-poet-mahmoud-darwish.html) and “Remainder of a Life” (www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2007/05/14/070514po_poem_darwish) give a taste of Darwish’s poetry in his later years.
The magazine of Modern Arabic Literature, “Banipal” has posted a tribute to Darwish at www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/contributor.php?conid=65. The tribute contains a detailed biography as well as photos of Darwish and translations of his work. Banipal also notes that Palestinian American doctor Fady Joudah has won the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of the bilingual edition “The Butterfly’s Burden”, which brings together three of Darwish’s collections. The award (www.banipaltrust.org.uk/prize/award2008.php) will be presented on Sept. 29 in London.
