Nothing More to Lose

Author: Najwan Darwish

Translator: Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Publisher: New York Review Books (2014)

Nothing More to Lose is the first collection of poems by Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish to appear in English. Hailed across the Arab world and beyond, Darwish’s poetry walks the razor’s edge between despair and resistance, between dark humor and harsh political realities. With incisive imagery and passionate lyricism, Darwish confronts themes of equality and justice while offering a radical, more inclusive, rewriting of what it means to be both Arab and Palestinian living in Jerusalem, his birthplace.

“Najwan Darwish’s poetry is different: it seems to have overcome the false dichotomy between poetry and social and political reality. What struck me first about reading these poems is his capacity to do justice to both poetry (to image, to condensed form) while also doing justice to its surrounding reality. This is a significant challenge: how to mediate between two intense forms without ruining either.”

—Bashir Abu-Manneh