Voice Over: a nomadic conversation with Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet (1941 - 9 August 2008), was a friend. I was on Gorée Island when I learned of his death during the course of an open-heart intervention in Houston, America. We had been together a few weeks earlier in Arles, the south of France. Even at noon the foyer of the hotel where we stayed was as if drained of light by dusk. He knew how serious his condition was – it was either the very risky operation or the possibility of dying at any moment from an exploding a...