Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet's Art and His Nation

by Khaled Mattawa

Overview

In Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet's Art and His Nation, Mattawa pays tribute to one of the most celebrated and well-read poets of our era. With detailed knowledge of Arabic verse and a firm grounding in Palestinian history, Mattawa explores the ways in which Darwish's aesthetics have played a crucial role in shaping and maintaining Palestinian identity and culture through decades of warfare, attrition, exile, and land confiscation. Mattawa chronicles the evolution of his poetry, from a young poet igniting resistance in occupied land to his decades in exile where his work grew in ambition and scope. In doing so, Mattawa reveals Darwish's verse to be both rooted to its place of longing and to transcend place, as it reaches for the universal and the human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815633617
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	06/12/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Born and raised in Libya, Khaled Mattawa immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He is associate professor in the English Department at the University of Michigan. He is the author of several books of poetry, including Tocqueville and Amorisco.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

Note on Translations and Transliteration xvii

1 An Introduction: Perennial Tensions 1

2 The Poet and the National Literature 14

3 Poet under Occupation, 1964-1971 30

4 Poet of National Liberation, 1971-1986 62

5 To Survive in the World: Writing the Deep Present and the Deep Past, 1986-1993 94

6 Who Am I without Exile?: Anxieties of Renewal and a National Late Style, 1995-2008 128

7 Parting Words: The Poet Appropriates Contingency 154

Postscript 169

References 177

Index 185

Editorial Reviews

Mattawa's analysis provides a fascinating interpretation of Darwish's national poetry.

Bustan: The Middle East Book Review

Mattawa's book is an insightful and well-documented study of Mahmoud Darwish. It is a welcome contribution to understanding this great poet of Arabic literature and an outstanding paradigm for future studies.

Review of Middle East Studies

A brilliant and illuminating look at one of the greatest Arab poets of all time, by one of the greatest Arab poets of our time.

author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus Reza Aslan

Written with fluidity that does justice to the poet he analyzes, Khaled Mattawa's Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet's Arts and His Nation is a superbly constructed book that contextualizes Darwish's language, aesthetics, structures, and devices. Mattawa treats these complexities with tremendous skill, framing his critique of Darwish in a larger framework of poetry's role in the political and cultural discourses that shaped Palestinian identity.

author of Modern Arab American Fiction: A Read Steven Salaita

Mattawa's homage to Mahmoud Darwish, through a very intelligent and perceptive reading of some of his most important poems, reveals a very human side to one of the greatest voices in modern Arabic poetry.Terri DeYoung, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington

Terri DeYoung

Mattawa's analysis provides a fascinating interpretation of Darwish's national poetry.

Bustan: The Middle East Book Review