mahmoud darwish memory for forgetfulness

The poet kept searching for the boy he had lost on the beaches. Those were his last few days of happiness and innocence. He and his family had few good times on the beaches of Lebanon after they were sent off from Galilee. They must clear the last path for the last thread of our blood.’”ĭarwish describes his childhood in this book. ‘By sea,’ we said … ‘But first they must break the siege of the sea. He put it beautifully, “We said we’d leave. He wrote the refugees in Lebanon “were still being born without a reason, growing up for no reason, remembering for no reason, and being put under siege for no reason.” There was some kind of negotiations with the Israelis but to no avail. A generation was born with no purpose as they did not know where they belonged to. Life in Lebanon for the Palestinians after 1948 was paradoxical as they had nowhere to go. I want a five-minute truce for the sake of coffee.” This book was written after Darwish left Beirut and it is a description of one day under siege. Darwish pleads “I want the aroma of coffee. The water supply also could not be counted on. There is unrelenting bombardment and the window near the burner is exposed to snipers and bombers and there is no way he could make a cup of coffee. Memory for Forgetfulness opens with the writer wanting to make a cup of coffee. The book is translated into English by Ibrahim Muhawi and he has done it keeping the spirit of the book intact and it has the same impact as the original work. He explores the streets of Beirut which is war ravaged and he does this on August 6 th, Hiroshima Day. The sights and sounds of the city under siege is vividly portrayed in these works. For his prose poems like Memory for Forgetfulness he has the Israeli invasion of 1982 as the setting. He has won many awards and his work has been translated into 20 languages.

The core idea of his poems is the concept of Watan or homeland. His poetry was about the problems faced by the refugees in the Nakba and their inevitability of return. He was the editor of various periodicals like Shu’un Filistiniyya, Al-Fajr, Al-Jadid and Al-Karmel. Darwish has published more than 30 volumes of poetry and eight books of prose. However we cannot put it into a prose category because there are many small poems in this work. Memory for Forgetfulness written by him is not a poem but prose. He is regarded as the national poet of Palestine. Mahmoud Darwish was a Palestinian poet and has penned many poems depicting the sad state of the Palestinians.

Mahmoud darwish memory for forgetfulness