The first English translation of recent poetry by the late Mahmoud Darwish, the most important Palestinian contemporary poet.

Almond 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."

When the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008, his friends visited his home and retrieved poems and writings some of which are gathered together in this volume, translated into English for the first time.

They include three collections from different phases in Darwish's writing career, as well as reminiscences by friends drawn from the poet's final years, and a moving account of the discovery of the new poems in this collection.

First English publication of interviews with the late Mahmoud Darwish.

Palestine as Metaphor consists of a series of interviews with Mahmoud Darwish, which have never been translated and published in English before. The interviews are a wealth of information on the poet's personal life, his relationships, his numerous works, and his tragedy. They illuminate Darwish's conception of poetry as a supreme art that transcends time and place.

Several writers and journalists conducted the interviews, including a Lebanese poet, a Syrian literary critic, three Palestinian writers, and an Israeli journalist. Each encounter took place in a different city from Nicosia to London, Paris, and Amman.

These vivid dialogues unravel the threads of a rich life haunted by the loss of Palestine and illuminate the genius and the distress of a major world poet.

Mahmoud Darwish's work has long been considered seminal in shaping modern Arabic poetry.

He has received wide international recognition and is regarded as a contender for the Nobel Prize. Often deemed the "Poet of the Resistance," no substantial critical study exists that addresses the complexity of Darwish's poetry in rewriting the homeland and articulating exile. His later poetry consciously marks a move away from his earlier portrayals of identity, home, and poetry, yet many critics have failed to take note of this shift. His oeuvre yokes poetry and history, the political and the poetic, probing identities in perpetual exile.

This book examines the complex connections between poetry, myth, lyric, prose, and history in Darwish's poetry. The scholarly articles in this volume situate his work in relation to both modern Arabic and world poetry. In addition, the articles address issues such as the future of poetry, the role of the poet, language, cultural heritage, lyrical modes, as well as the relationship of place and identity.