Memory for forgetfulness : August, Beirut, 1982 / Mahmoud Darwish ; translated, with an introduction by Ibrahim Muhawi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Darwīsh, Maḥmūd.

Contributor:

Muhawi, Ibrahim, 1937-

Series:

Literature of the Middle East.

Literature of the Middle East

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Darwīsh, Maḥmūd.

Lebanon--History--Israeli intervention, 1982-1985--Personal narratives, Palestinian.

Lebanon.

Beirut (Lebanon)--History.

Beirut (Lebanon).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 182 pages)

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2013]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

One of the Arab world's greatest poets uses the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the shelling of Beirut as the setting for this sequence of prose poems. Mahmoud Darwish vividly recreates the sights and sounds of a city under terrible siege. As fighter jets scream overhead, he explores the war-ravaged streets of Beirut on August 6th (Hiroshima Day).Memory for Forgetfulness is an extended reflection on the invasion and its political and historical dimensions. It is also a journey into personal and collective memory. What is the meaning of exile? What is the role of the writer in time of war? What is the relationship of writing (memory) to history (forgetfulness)? In raising these questions, Darwish implicitly connects writing, homeland, meaning, and resistance in an ironic, condensed work that combines wit with rage. Ibrahim Muhawi's translation beautifully renders Darwish's testament to the heroism of a people under siege, and to Palestinian creativity and continuity. Sinan Antoon's foreword, written expressly for this edition, sets Darwish's work in the context of changes in the Middle East in the past thirty years.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Memory for Forgetfulness

Chapter I

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from title page (ebrary, viewed May 28, 2013).

ISBN:

9780520954595

0520954599

OCLC:

842881980