Almond Blossoms and Beyond

The first English translation of recent poetry by the late Mahmoud Darwish, the most important Palestinian contemporary poet"If I die before you, I leave you the impossible."--Mahmoud Darwish, in "Exile" "A brilliant poet--certainly the most gifted of his generation in the Arab world."--Edward Said"I can only hope that the day will soon come, especially in English, when Darwish's night and dream, jasmine and almond blossoms are seen for what they are: the private lexicon of a singular and eternal, timeless voice in the history of human literature."--Fady JoudahAlmond Blossoms and Beyond is one of the last collections of poetry that Mahmoud Darwish left to the world. Composed of brief lyric poems and the magnificent sustained Exile cycle, Almond Blossoms holds an important place in Darwish's unparalleled oeuvre. It distills his late style, in which, though the specter of death looms and weddings turn to funerals, he threads the pulses and fragilities and beauties of life into the lines of his poems. Their liveliness is his own response to the collection's final call to bid "Farewell / Farewell, to the poetry of pain."