...has died, almost 26 years to the day after August 6, 1982: the day which provides the setting for Memory For Forgetfulness, written amidst the Israeli siege of Beirut. The book is sometimes presented as prose poems, which seems an ambivalent judgment; it may simply be "memoir," but is regardless more poetic than most books of poetry published in its century.
Somewhat vexingly, the book is also more poetic and more compelling than the vast body of Darwish's poems, often fascinating and internationally renowned, but not without a somewhat parched symbolic character. A constructivist historian who wished above all things to be a poet — turning down a post in Arafat's cabinet (after a conversation about Malraux) — Darwish's work and his life raise the most essential questions about the role of the artist in the midst of historical disaster, questions to which we would hazard no answers, having none.
Posted by jane at August 9, 2008 04:34 PM | TrackBack