Almond Blossoms and Beyond

Almond Blossoms and Beyond

by Mahmoud Darwish 

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.”

“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 Joudah

“Internationally recognized Palestinian poet Darwish, who died in 2008, writes lyric poems about uprootedness, exile, love, and the idea of death, which seems to throb between his lines… In what is likely his last collection, Darwish writes in a clear, simple, and yet elusive language charged with sharp visual images and vibrant musical beats… Though Darwish is a cultural icon among his people who has contributed much to shaping the Palestinian identity and consciousness, this work showcases his ability to recharge his language and reach for universal themes … Darwish’s transformative language delights.”
-- Library Journal

“Almond Blossoms and Beyond, first published in Arabic in 2005 and newly translated by Mohammad Shaheen,[...is] a complex counterpoint between the personal and the political, the poetic and the poetological (poetry about poetry), the reflective and the polemical, the real and the surreal. These shifts are rapid but graceful, a grace that is well captured by Shaheen's translations... a carefully, almost symmetrically structured collection ... beautifully produced.” 
-- Electronic Intifada