No One Will Know You Tomorrow
Selected Poems, 2014-2024
Najwan Darwish author Kareem James Abu-Zeid translator
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Yale University Press
Publishing:28th Jan '25
£20.00
This title is due to be published on 28th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A selection of the exquisite, passionate verse of the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, superbly translated into English
“A lush bouquet of essential poems from one of our species’ most urgent living poets. These are poems of testimony, of presence and the persistence of joy.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!
Born in Jerusalem in 1978, Najwan Darwish is one of the most important poets of the Arabic-speaking world. This definitive collection, which draws from five volumes published in Arabic as well as new unpublished work, brings to English-language readers a sweeping trove of Darwish’s most powerful and urgent poetry of the last decade.
In spare lyric verse, Darwish testifies to the brutal and intimate traumas of war, the anguished fatigue of waking up each morning in an occupied land, and the immeasurable toll of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While anchored in the geography of Palestine, his poetry also explores the rich artistic inheritance of the Arabic-speaking world, moving between regions, landscapes, and eras, from the glories of medieval Granada to the rippling shores of contemporary Haifa. In dialogue with poets, philosophers, and seekers from many different traditions, Darwish’s verse pulses with spiritual longing and a sense of battered, disoriented wonder—a witness to both the atrocities we visit upon one another and the miracle that we are here at all.
No One Will Know You Tomorrow is a tribute to the indomitability of the human spirit: its sensitive attunement to beauty and its endurance in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
“Brilliant. . . . A soon-to-be classic.”—ArabLit
“A lush bouquet of essential poems from one of our species’ most urgent living poets. Like all great poets, Darwish seeks to chart a holistic cosmos of body, mind, and spirit. But his body, mind, and spirit live on earth, where there are guns and militarized borders, razed buildings, and war orphans. Nevertheless, these are poems of testimony, of presence and the persistence of joy: ‘In an end that leads / to an endless end, / I lived.’”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!
“A remarkable work of witness and translation. These poems, wry and sensual, widen the breach in the heart. Najwan Darwish is a prophet of our hard, exhausted time—the sea his ancient muse, Palestine his Andalus, language his only Paradise.”—Yasmine Seale, translator of The Annotated Arabian Nights
“I return to the poetry of Najwan Darwish—that effortless, natural blend of high lyricism and tragic history—again and again, year after year. In the midst of the sobering horror of our moment, the poet searches for the timeless, the metaphysical. This search is wisdom: ‘Take refuge in language,’ he advises. ‘It’s the only solid ground / for ships.’ Lucky are the readers who find Darwish’s work for the first time. What a journey awaits your ships.”—Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
“An enthralling and essential collection. The cultural, political, physical, and intimate geographies of this book widen as we read. These verses are enduring monuments, and translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid reaches the quietest beats of every poem, masterfully transporting Darwish’s wit and lyricism from Arabic into English.”—Nathalie Handal, author of Life in a Country Album
“I’ve seen nothing of what I believed, but if a God exists it is the same God for me and for the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish.”—Raúl Zurita, author of INRI
ISBN: 9780300275469
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
248 pages