A River Dies of Thirst

Author: Mahmoud Darwish

Translator: Catherine Cobham

Publisher: Archipelago Books (2009)

This remarkable collection of poems, meditations, fragments, and journal entries was Mahmoud Darwish’s last volume to come out in Arabic.
 
River is at once lyrical and philosophical, questioning and wise—full of irony, resistance, and play. Darwish’s musings on unrest and loss dwell on love and humanity; in the pages of River, myth and dream are inseparable from truth.
 
Throughout this personal collection, Darwish returns frequently to his ongoing (and often lighthearted) conversation with death, warning that “eternity does not visit graves and loves to joke.”

"Darwish is the premier poetic voice of the Palestinian people . . . lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant—and never anything less than free—what he would dream for all his people." 

—Naomi Shihab Nye