JORDAN: Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish launches his collection "In the Presence of Absence" before hundreds of fans at the Balad Theatre in Amman

Hundreds of enthusiastic fans of renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish attended a poetry reading and book signing evening at Amman's Balad theatre, during which Darwish launched his latest collection of poetry. Darwish, 64, enthralled his audience with readings from "In the Presence of Absence" before his fans crowded around his table holding up copies of his books for him to sign. The man known by millions of Arabs as "Palestine's poet" is for many a source of pride and a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. "Mahmoud Darwish is a poet that I am really proud of. He's a Palestinian poet, he is not only a poet for Palestinians but for the entire Arab nation. The homeland is embodied by Mahmoud Darwish," said Wafaa Fourani who attended the reading. Darwish, a Palestinian Israeli, returned from 26 years of exile when he arrived in the West Bank in 1996. Upon his return, Israeli authorities allowed Darwish to make a brief visit to his native village of Jdaideh, near the city of Acre, for the first time since 1970. The Palestinian village became part of Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Between 1960 to 1970, the Israeli authorities jailed Darwish several times and placed him under administrative detention for his activities in Arab nationalist groups. He then left Israel and joined the PLO, moving from Lebanon to Tunis to Paris and to Jordan. His poems have been made into songs popularised throughout the Arab world. His fans say his works embody Palestine, and the pains of living in prisons and in exile. His friends call him the poet of the revolution. In 1964, from his jail cell, he wrote a poem about a prisoner yearning for his mother's touch, his mother's coffee, his mother's bread. From exile, he wrote the poem "My Homeland Is My Suitcase". His strong Arab nationalism was expressed through his famous refrains: "Write, I am an Arab" and "I am my language." Darwish, a tense and private man whose youthful appearance belies his age, has said he gleaned "human and creative maturity" from his life in exile. Darwish has strongly criticised Israel in his poems. He resigned from the PLO's Executive Committee to protest against the organisation's 1993 peace accord with the Jewish state. He said the agreement did not meet the minimum requirements of the Palestinian people. In exile, Darwish's verse was a mixture of simplicity and complexity, symbolism and history, religion and nationalism. Upon his return he said his poems would become more transparent to reach a wider audience. He published his first book of poetry, "Leaves of Olives," in 1964 at the age of 22, and has since published over 30 poetry collections and prose works that have been translated into over 30 languages. Many Palestinians in the diaspora cling to Darwish's writing, which they feel voices their own longings for their homeland. "This evening moved me, as a nationalist and a human being. It gives you a feeling of what is going on in the world and the reality of it," Darwish enthusiast Tareq al-Dari said. Darwish has received several awards for his work, including the 1969 Lotus Prize by the Union of Afro-Asian Writers and the Lenin Peace Prize in 1983.

ITN Source | November 21, 2006

Tags:. .requirements. .youthful. .became. .acre. .languages