Mahmoud Darwish, Exile's Poet: Critical Essays Paperback – January 1, 2006

Mahmoud Darwish: Exile's Poet has an excellent Foreword by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, who is a scholar of longstanding in the field of Arabic literary criticism and has special empathy with Mahmoud Darwish's writing. Mahmoud Darwish is a poet loved by Palestinians and whom they call their "national poet". The book includes a collection of articles by scholars from around the world who have made a sincere attempt to write about a difficult subject and one on which there is very little available even in Arabic. I especially liked Reuven Snir's long article titled: "Other Barbarians Will Come: Intertextuality, Meta-Poetry and Meta-Myth in Mahmoud Darwish's Poetry". Snir, a scholar of international reknown in the field of Arabic literary criticism, has lived through many of the times and events in Mahmoud Darwish's life and, as does Jayyusi, relates to his writings.