Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems by Mahmoud Darwish. Berkeley. 2003. University Of California Press. Translated From the Arabic & Edited By Munir Akash & Carolyn Forche with Sinan Antoon & Amira El-Zein. 191 pages. 0520237536.
FROM THE PUBLISHER -
These translations of Mahmoud Darwish’s marvelous poems reveal the lifelong development of a major world poet. The book is a gift to other poets and lovers of poetry. It’s also an important contribution to current and future discourse on culture and politics. ’-Adrienne Rich, author of Fox: Poems, 1996-2000 ‘At this critical moment in world relations, cultural, creative projects feel more necessary than ever. Celebrate this most comprehensive gathering of Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry ever translated into English. Darwish is the premier poetic voice of the Palestinian people, and the collaboration between translators Akash and Forché is a fine mingling of extraordinary talents. The style here is quintessential Darwish-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, author of Fuel. CONTENTS – Introduction Munir Akash and Carolyn Forché; FROM Fewer Roses - I Will Slog over This Road; Another Road in the Road; Were It Up to Me to Begin Again; On This Earth; I Belong There; Addresses for the Soul, outside This Place; Earth Presses against Us; We Journey towards a Home; We Travel Like All People; Athens Airport; I Talk Too Much; We Have the Right to Love Autumn; The Last Train Has Stopped; On the Slope, Higher Than the Sea, They Slept; He Embraces His Murderer; Winds Shift against Us; Neighing on the Slope; Other Barbarians Will Come; They Would Love to See Me Dead; When the Martyrs Go to Sleep; The Night There; We Went to Aden; Another Damascus in Damascus; The Flute Cried; In This Hymn; FROM I See What I Want to See - The Hoopoe; FROM Why Have You Left the Horse Alone? - I See My Ghost Coming from Afar; A Cloud in My Hands; The Kindhearted Villagers; The Owl’s Night; The Everlasting Indian Fig; The Lute of Ismael; The Strangers’ Picnic; The Raven’s Ink; Like the Letter ‘N’ in the Qur’an; Ivory Combs; The Death of the Phoenix; Poetic Regulations; Excerpts from the Byzantine Odes of Abu Firas; The Dreamers Pass from One Sky to Another; A Rhyme for the Odes ; Night That Overflows My Body; The Gypsy Woman Has a Tame Sky; FROM A Bed for the Stranger - We Were without a Present; Sonnet II; The Stranger Finds Himself in the Stranger; The Land of the Stranger, the Serene Land; Inanna’s Milk; Who Am I, without Exile?; Lesson from the Kama Sutra; Mural ; Mural; Three Poems ; A Soldier Dreams of White Tulips; As Fate Would Have It; Four Personal Addresses; Glossary. Mahmoud Darwish is the author of twenty books of poems, including Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982, The Adam of Two Edens, and Psalms He received the 2001 Prize for Cultural Freedom from the Lannan Foundation. Munir Akash is editor of Jusoor, The Arab American Journal of Cultural Exchange, and coeditor of The Adam of Two Edens and Post Gibran: Anthropology of New Arab American Writing Carolyn Forché is Professor of English at George Mason University and author of The Angel of History Sinan Antoon is coeditor of Arab Studies Journal. Amira El-Zein is the author of Bedouin of Hell and The Book of Palm Trees Mahmoud Darwish is a literary rarity: at once critically acclaimed as one of the most important poets in the Arabic language, and beloved as the voice of his people. He is a living legend whose lyrics are sung by fieldworkers and schoolchildren. He has assimilated some of the world’s oldest literary traditions at the same time that he has struggled to open new possibilities for poetry. This collection spans Darwish’s entire career, nearly four decades, revealing an impressive range of expression and form. A splendid team of translators has collaborated with the poet on these new translations, which capture Darwish’s distinctive voice and spirit.
Mahmoud Darwish is the author of twenty books of poems, including Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982, The Adam of Two Edens, and Psalms He received the 2001 Prize for Cultural Freedom from the Lannan Foundation.
Munir Akash is editor of Jusoor, The Arab American Journal of Cultural Exchange, and coeditor of The Adam of Two Edens and Post Gibran: Anthropology of New Arab American Writing.
Carolyn Forché is Professor of English at George Mason University and author of The Angel of History.
Sinan Antoon is coeditor of Arab Studies Journal.
Amira El-Zein is the author of Bedouin of Hell and The Book of Palm Trees.