Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (Literature of the Middle East) [Paperback]

Mahmoud Darwish (Author), Ibrahim Muhawi (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0520087682 | ISBN-13: 978-0520087682

One of the Arab world's greatest living 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Extraordinary prose poems translated from Arabic, written out of the siege of Beirut 20 years ago."--"The Guardian Review (UK)

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Arabic --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (March 20, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520087682
• ISBN-13: 978-0520087682
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #698,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Obscurity and clarity October 30, 2012

By E. Strickenburg

Format:Paperback

"The obscure heaps on the obscure, rubs against itself, and ignites into clarity."

This quote epitomizes my experience of this book. Although technically written in prose, this book is a poetic journey through Mahmoud Darwish's experience as a displaced Palestinian of the 1982 bombardment of Beirut. Darwish is one of the most renown poets in the Arabic speaking world, and even in prose his words and metaphors strike deep.

The episodes in this book range from highly personal experiences of trauma to passionate political tirades - into the dream world and back to a reality that feels like a nightmare. It is a stunning look at the range of emotions of wartime trauma, from the sudden importance of simple acts like making coffee to the feeling of walking down the middle of an empty street hoping for the quick death of being caught by a shell rather than the slow death of being crushed under a building turned to rubble. The author's Palestinian identity adds the tension of being caught in the midst of a war, but with no true nationality or homeland.

As the book progresses, the language and metaphors become increasingly edgy and jumbled, leading to a sense of increased confusion and inability to cope with the violence of circumstances. This book is not for the faint of heart (nor for readers who find symbolist poetry especially frustrating). But it is a stunning window into the Palestinian identity and the trauma of war - and even the passages that seem dense with obscurity eventually ignite into an overall sense of clarity.