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‘Sleep is an Overlord and Sovereign’ The Poetics and Politics of Sleep in Mahmoud Darwish’s In the Presence of Absence

Bibliographic Data

ID18969738
AuthorsBilal Hamamra (0000-0003-4375-0293, An-Najah National University, corresponding author), Sanaa Abu Samra (An-Najah National University)
Year2022
Volume24
Issue8
Pages1229-1246
Publication date2022-11-17
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInterventions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-801X • E-ISSN: 1469-929X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369801x.2022.2029534
OpenAlexW4212998398
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited9

A great body of work has been done on Darwish: themes of the self, exile, homeland, and identity are common in both his works as well as those of his critics. However, there has been little work done on the theme of sleep in Darwish, despite its recurrence in his works – specifically, his final productions. These are particularly embellished with images and scenes of sleep, wakefulness, drowsiness, insomnia and dreams. This essay examines the representation of these liminal states in Mahmoud Darwish’s In the Presence of Absence (FīḤaḍrat al-Ghiyāb), a self-elegy published near the end of his life, which reflects the dialectical structure of the quasi-contradictory states of consciousness and unconsciousness, sleep and death, as well as presence and absence

Aesthetics · Art · Homeland · Liminality · Literature · Poetics · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Psychology

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Citations per year2
Citation span2024 - 2026 (3)
Highly citedNo

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