The Sparkling Flower of Poetry on the Realism of Cruelty: A Chinese Reading in the Pluralism of Palestinian Identity in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish

In: Chinese and Arab studies: ˜aṣ-œ Ṣīn wa'l-ʿālam al-ʿArabī, Volume 2, Issue 2, p. 151-161

Abstract

Abstract
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) is regarded as the Palestinian national poet, and the leader of Palestinian resistance poetry. The Chinese version of his poetry collection A Lover From Palestine was published in 2016, then republished in 2020. In the eyes of Chinese researchers and admirers of poetry and Arabic literature in China, Mahmoud Darwish has long been aware of the Palestinian identity crisis under the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and endeavored, through his abundant works, to implement a dynamic poetic construction of the Palestinian national cultural identity, in order to unite, to maintain, and to expand Palestinian national identity on one hand, and to document and inherit Palestinian cultural legacy on the other hand. This paper, based on Darwish's work, tries to explore the poet's considerations of Palestinian national identity crisis, and his faith of the poetry's indispensable role to build up the national cultural identity from three aspects: his awareness of the identity crisis, his poetic construction of a multiidentity, and his strategy of defending it. Thus the poet made a great effort to document, defend and expand the Palestinian authentic, multidimensional identity in his immortal work.