Mahmoud Darwish (15 March 1941 - 9 August 2008)

posted on: Mar 13, 2015

In 1971 PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat said of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: “I can smell the fragrance of the homeland on you.” In this observation the leader captured a central part of Darwish’s philosophy – whilst Palestine has left beautiful traces in the air it is a concept that can’t quite be touched.

Perhaps the most common reflection on Darwish’s work is that Palestine is a metaphor for the loss of Eden, or a constructed paradise. As he himself observed when you are deprived of home, it becomes a “need” and a “lust”, or a dream which is more beautiful than the reality. The state of exile becomes all encompassing.

“This jasmine in the July night is a song
for two strangers who meet on a street leading nowhere.
“Who am I after your two almond eyes?” the male stranger asks.
“Who am I after your exile in me?” the female stranger asks.” (Night That Overflows My Body)

No wonder the reverberations of exile seep out into Darwish’s writing. At six years old he fled his home in Upper Galilee, which was being bombed by the Israelis, and sought refuge in the camps of southern Lebanon. When he and his family returned one year later, settlements had been built on the remnants of their home.

His family were classed as present absentees and lived as refugees in their own country. From a young age Darwish was confronted with the fact that Palestinians were second-class citizens but still had to celebrate the creation of Israel. Whilst at school, on Israel’s Independence Day, Darwish wrote a letter to a Jewish boy to explain that he could not be happy until he was allowed to have what the Jewish boy had.

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com