Mural
The long poem Darwish wrote after a near-fatal heart operation, translated by Rema Hammami and John Berger.
Darwish wrote Mural after coming round from clinical death during heart surgery in 1998. It is a long poem addressed to his own body, to language, and to the deferred question of return. This edition, translated by Rema Hammami and John Berger, sets it alongside The Dice Player, written a decade later, in which the poet reckons his life as a sequence of accidents he did nothing to earn.
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Raja Shehadeh
The village where he was born was destroyed in 1948. He started writing poetry when he was very young. He later became a communist and was very active politically, although he spent some time in prison. Palestinians living in Israel until 1967 endured a military government and there were many restrictions on their lives. Darwish went abroad to study and stayed away. Leaving Israel was a difficult decision for him.
Interview · February 2011
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