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December 21, 2007
Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Jeffrey Sacks, '92
Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? Archipelago Books, 2006
The book: At once an intimate autobiography and a collective memory of the Palestinian people, Mahmoud Darwish's interlinked poems are collective cries, songs, and glimpses of the human condition. The collection-widely considered his chef-d'oeuvre-is a poetry of myth and history, of exile and suspended time, of an identity bound to the Arabic language and his displaced people. Darwish's poems-specific and symbolic, simple and profound-are historical glimpses, existential queries, chants of pain and injustice of a people separated from their land.
The translator: Jeffrey Sacks is a writer, translator, and scholar living in New York City. He teaches Arabic at Columbia University, and is editing and translating a collection of essays by Elias Khoury.
Posted by tobiaslw at December 21, 2007 03:33 PM