A review by jayisreading
Journal of an Ordinary Grief by Mahmoud Darwish

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

It’s hard not to feel an ache in your chest after reading Journal of an Ordinary Grief, knowing that something first published in 1973 remains painfully relevant over fifty years later. I am familiar with Darwish’s poetry, but this was my first foray into his prose writings (though the lyricism is still apparent). He deeply reflects on what it means to have Palestine as a homeland (and what it means that it is not given the same status as, say, Israel, by the West), along with what it means to be Palestinian.

I’m not sure if there is more I can say about this book, other than that it is well worth taking the time to read and sit with Darwish’s contemplations. I was especially impacted by the following quote from “Silence for the Sake of Gaza”:

And Gaza is not the most polished of cities, or the largest. But she is equivalent to the history of a nation, because she is the most repulsive among us in the eyes of the enemy—the poorest, the most desperate, and the most ferocious. Because she is a nightmare. Because she is oranges that explode, children without a childhood, aged men without an old age, and women without desire. Because she is all that, she is the most beautiful among us, the purest, the richest, and most worthy of love.
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