Mahmoud Derwish |
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Collection title
One hundred outstanding books
First broadcast date
2002
Abstract
A cultural program which speaks about the Palestinian poet and writer Mahmoud Darwish and his various works. Among his collection of poetry: “I see what I want”, “Eleven stars” and others.
We deal with his poetry through a meeting with the Jordanian poet Geris Samawi who shows us the whole experience of this Palestinian poet, mainly his attachment to home country, the lost Palestine, the exile, the airports and cities he passed through starting from Syria.
All his works glorify his home land, Palestine, with its very details such as the grass, the plants, the coasts, the sea, and the clouds. He was also attached to the arabic language and culture which means a lot to him.
Production companies
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Television - Own production
Broadcaster
JRTV - Jordan Television
Audiovisual form
Documentary
Primary theme
Art, Culture and Knowledge
Secondary themes
- Art, Culture and Knowledge / Languages and literatures
Credits / Cast
- Attia Rabi - Author of original work
- Attia Rabi - Speaker
- Attia Rabi - Director
Map locations
- Palestine - West bank - Jerusalem
Additional information
Footage of the poet Mahmoud Derwish in festivals of poetry
Context
Mahmoud Darwich
Norig Neveu
This documentary is part of a series presenting the hundred best-known Arab authors, and this one is about Mahmoud Darwish seen through the eyes of the Jordanian poet al-Jaris Samawy, who emphasizes the importance of Palestine in Darwish's work. His poetry is indeed emblematic of the Palestinian people's struggle. He called himself the “The losers' poet” – although he was also a poet of love.
Mahmoud Darwish was born in 1941 in al-Birwah, a village in Galilee, which was destroyed in 1948 during the creation of Israel. After living as refugees in the Lebanon, he and his family re-settled illegally in Palestine, in Dair al-Assad, then in Haifa, where in 1960 Mahmoud Darwish published his first collection of poetry, Birds Without Wings.
Once he had completed his studies, Mahmoud Darwish published his poems in the local press, mainly in al-Jadid of which he became editor. From 1961, he joined the underground Communist Party of Israel and was imprisoned several times. The publication of his book Olive Branches in 1964, featuring his famous poem Identity, earned him international recognition as the voice of Palestinian resistance.
His life was marked by numerous exiles. In 1970 he left Palestine and went to Moscow, Cairo and Beirut. He then joined the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and founded the literary journal al-Karmel of which he became editor. During the civil war Darwish left the Lebanon and settled in Cairo, Tunis and finally Paris. Elected to the Executive Committee of the PLO in 1987, he left the organization in 1993 in protest against the Oslo Agreement and the PLO's attitude to it, according to him too conciliatory. He then returned to settle in Palestine, where he obtained special permission to live in the town of Ramallah. A state funeral was held there after his death in 2008, while Jordan awarded him honours.
Mahmoud Darwish leaves a considerable body of work that includes more than twenty volumes of poetry and seven books of prose. Translated into many languages, his work typifies the problems of the Palestinian struggle: nostalgia, exile and confusion. It also contains elements of autobiography, such as A Memory for Forgetting, which chronicles the author's life in Beirut during the Israeli offensive to oust the PLO from the city in 1982. Darwish is also famous for his mastery of Arabic, a language he cherished and in which his whole work is written.
Mahmoud Darwish is probably the Middle East's most famous poet. Many of his poems have been performed by musicians, including Marcel Khalife, who, in 1984, directed a poetic opera written by Darwish himself.
Bibliography:
Marie-Hélène Avrilet Sobhi Boustani, Poétique et politique : la poésie de Mahmoud Darwich, Bordeaux, Presse universitaire de Bordeaux, 2010.
Mahmoud Darwich, Chronique de la tristesse ordinaire, Paris, Du Cerf, 1989.
Mahmoud Darwich, Une mémoire pour l’oubli : le temps, Beyrouth, le lieu, un jour d’août, 1982, Arles, Actes Sud, 1994.
François Xavier, Mahmoud Darwich dans l'exil de sa langue, Marseille, Autres temps, 2004.
Anette Mansson, Passage to a new world: exile and restoration in Mahmoud Darwish’s writings, 1960-1995, Uppsala, Uppsala University Press, 2003.
