Memory for Forgetfulness

By Mahmoud Darwish, Ibrahim Muhawi (translator),

Book cover of Memory for Forgetfulness

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Memory for Forgetfulness as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Memory for Forgetfulness is a powerful memoir of the siege of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War and the August 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which, in many ways, represents the predecessor to the Israeli-Hamas, Israeli-Hezbollah conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon since the horrific Hamas attacks on Gaza on October 7, 2023 that in turn provoked such a democidal Israeli response. With a dark and sardonic sense of humor (one must forgive the translator for passages that must be nearly impossible to translate), the poem seeks to break through the boundaries of language in its effort to depict the clash…

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