Desert Sorrows: Poems by Tayseer al-Sboul

No poet of the twentieth century has captured the experience of Arabic-speaking people in the modern world better than Tayseer al-Sboul. One of Jordan’s most celebrated writers, educated in that country, as well as in Lebanon and Syria, he faced the dilemmas and contradictions of the Arab world during the Cold War years. Caught between tradition and modernity, he dreamed of a great Arab nation. With unflinching courage and brutal honesty, he revealed his life in poems: his family, his conne...