Memory for forgetfulness
Subtitle: August, Beirut, 1982
By: Mahmoud Darwish ; translated, with an introduction by Ibrahim Muhawi ; with a new foreword by Sinan Antoon
Contributors: Darwīsh, Maḥmūd; Muhawi, Ibrahim, 1937- translator; Antoon, Sinan, 1967- contributor
Series: Literature of the Middle East
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Berkeley, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 182
ISBN-13: 9780520273047
Subjects: Palestinian Personal narratives; History
Work titles: Dhākirah lil-nisyān
Description: "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."--Cover.
Notes: Originally published: 1995.

Includes bibliographical references.

Translated from the Arabic.