A collection of 127 profoundly plaintive and passionate poems from 'the voice of Palestinian people', poet Mahmoud Darwish
During the tumultuous summer of 2006, as Israel attacked Gaza and Lebanon, Darwish was in Ramallah. He recorded his observations and feelings in writing included in A River Dies of Thirst, some of his last work. In this collection Darwish writes of love, loss, and the pain of exile in bittersweet poems and diary entries, leavened with hope and joy.
'I'm the result of a mixture of civilisations in Palestine's past. I didn't see Jews as devils or angels, but as human beings. I always humanise the other. I will continue to humanise the enemy. Poems take the side of love not war.' Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)
'It is through the poetry of Darwish that one learns what it meant, and still means, to be a Palestinian...He speaks for his people, but like all great poets he speaks for every human being.' New York Review of Books
'There are two maps of Palestine that politicians will never manage to forfeit: the one kept in the memories of Palestinian refugees, and that which is drawn by Darwish's poetry.' Anton Shammas
