This comprehensive anthology traces the written record of a people beset by nearly a century of conflict, exile, and dispersal. This collection includes poetry, fiction, and personal narratives by both established and rising Palestinian creative writers of the modern period. Also included are the works of Palestinians writing in English, most of whom are in exile in the United States, as well as personal narratives of writers living under the hardship of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"This massive, well-edited, translated, and researched volume is a living monument to the culture of a nation, now represented in English for the first time thanks to the unstinting labors of Salma Kahdra Jayyusi. Herself one of her people's best scholars and one of its poets, Dr. Jayyusi has put together this Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature with remarkable results in coverage, accuracy, and authenticity. Far from a folkloric or exotic record, this anthology admits the Palestinian contribution to world culture at an eminent place." - Edward W. Said

The traveler --The house -- A place -- Mist -- A song -- The Shaqeef moon / Yusuf Abd al-Aziz -- Prayer to the tremor of the final evening / Khalid Abu Khalid -- Trees on Maryam's sleeves -- Maryam in the grass -- Trees of words -- Your talk or the vodka / Yusuf Abu Lauz -- My country on partition day -- We shall return -- I love you more / Abu Salma -- Fever of questions -- Probabilities -- Handsome and tall -- Martyr -- Psalm / Zuhair Abu Shayib -- Thrombosis -- Exodus / Taha Muhammad Ali --|t The path of affection -- A new creation / Laila Allush -- On the shore / Naji Allush -- "From Jerusalem to the Gulf" -- On the presence of absence / Abd al-Latif Aql -- Personal account -- A song -- Prophets -- Singers -- The earth also dies -- When the inhabitants of the planets converse -- Who / Muhammad al-As'ad -- The tribes -- The guards -- Desire -- An official -- Liberation -- Certainty -- Exception -- I run toward you ... I run with you -- A vision / Mureed Barghouthy -- -- Aladdin's lamp for Sahba -- Diary of old man defector -- The vinegar cup -- Sailor returning from occupied shores -- Footsteps -- I was already dead! / Mu'een Bseiso -- Orange blossoms -- The malady and the cure / Hasan al-Buhairi -- New suggestions -- The terms of ambition -- I do not renounce madness -- Our country -- The hands again -- The sparrow told me / Ahmad Dahbour -- Poem of the land -- Homing pigeons -- Guests on the sea -- Intensive-care unit -- Psalm 9 -- We went to Aden / Mahmoud Darwish -- Three short letters -- Joy -- The little girl / Muhammad al-Dhahir -- Days in the life of a Palestinian boy / Waleed al-Halees -- Elegy on an estranged husband -- His picture -- Death sentence / Sulafa Hijjawi -- A souvenir vendor in Nazareth / Ahmad Husain -- Damascus diary -- Against -- First / Rashid Husain -- Zero hour -- For Socrates -- Love poem / Jabra Ibrahim Jabra -- Khartoum -- The woman -- Songs for an Arab city -- On June 5, 1968 -- The three of us alone / Salma Khadra Jayyusi -- Refugee -- Singer of wind and rain / Salem Jubran -- Adb al-Kareem al-Karmi (see Abu Salma) -- Dialectics of the homeland -- What is your purpose, murderous beauty? -- Departure -- This country / Ali al-Khalili -- Belonging -- Houses -- At least -- Brambles -- You will arrive: bewildered -- That day -- Absence -- The storm / Waleed Khazindar -- One thousand and one ... nights -- Family poems : Giyath, Mihyar, Um Giyath -- Peace be upon ... / Rasim al-Madhoun -- The martyr -- Call of the motherland -- The Aqsa Mosque / Abd al-Raheem Mahmoud -- The last witness -- Two-in-one -- The Palestinian Ayyub / Haydar Mahmoud -- At night -- Dawn visitors -- The inheritance / Izziddin al-Manasra -- A nonpersonal account -- Echo -- Two old ages -- The road -- Poetry -- A forest / Khairi Mansour -- Apology -- My things -- Everything -- A tavern -- Emigration -- The cafe mistress -- A woman / Zakariyya Muhammad -- Circling -- Meeting of two wounds / Khalid Ali Mustafa -- Reverse journey / Taha Abd al-Ghani Mustafa -- Letter to Fadwa / Kamal Nasir -- Flight -- Passageway -- A woman -- The hand -- Thread -- Song / Ibrahim Nasrallah -- At the doorstep of September / Jamal Qa'war -- All this is strange, like everything -- Language -- Fragrance -- Part of a wall -- Dead memory -- Cold -- Race -- Overflow / Kamal Qaddura -- Vision -- Love poem I -- Love poem IV -- Love poem XII -- One-day vacation / Muhammad al-Qaisi -- The clock -- Bats -- Ashes -- Love poems -- You pretend to die -- I do not blame you -- Drunk / Samih al-Qasim -- The fall -- Deformed -- To the children -- You are everything / Abdallah Radwan -- Poem to Jerusalem -- Raise your arms / Harun Hashim Rasheed -- From "Signs" / Taher Riyad -- Intimations of anxiety -- The ever-deferred moment / Laila al-Saih -- Death's at night's end / Waleed Sayf -- Elegy for Imm 'Ali -- Departure -- Beirut under siege / Mai Sayigh -- Poem 28 -- To enter a country -- The poem K / Tawfiq Sayigh -- Evening balcony -- The book of songs and stones -- Khulud / Umar Shabana -- The caravan's departure -- Love song / Mazin Shadeed -- Then how will the poem come? -- An evening of poetry reading -- Seven poems / Anton Shammas -- Between the wound and its bleeding / Khalil Touma -- The Sybil's prophecy -- Enough for me -- The deluge and the tree -- Song of becoming / Fadwa Tuqan -- Commando -- Dead hearts -- Brokers -- Lest we lose -- In Beirut / Ibrahim Tuqan -- Songs of the seventh exodus -- Plea -- The siege / Abd al-Raheem Umar -- Another death -- An incident -- How did they inform on you? -- A mirror / Ghassan Zaqtan -- Here we shall stay -- A million suns in my blood -- What next? -- Pagan fires -- All I have / Tawfiq Zayyad. Palestinian poets writing in English -- Metamorphosis -- Women and things -- Night patrol -- Death by burial -- From the diary of an almost-four-year-old / Hanan Mikha'il Ashrawi -- A little piece of sky -- In balance -- Camel fragments -- When slippers mingle -- The beggar / Sharif Elmusa -- Poems of opposites -- At the limit -- Breadmother -- Death of Enver -- Wintering alone / Lena Jayyusi -- Deportation -- My last day with Aisha / Aminah Kazak -- My father and the fig tree -- Shrines -- Blood -- Arabic coffee -- The words under the words -- My uncle Mohammad at Mecca -- 1981 / Naomi Shihab Nye -- The seed keepers -- Beirut -- Dusk in Galilee -- Osama Jibril of Jerusalem -- In search of Yacove Eved / Fawaz Turki. Prose -- Short stories -- What happened after midnight / Ibrahim al-Absi -- Mirage / Salih Abu Usba -- Hunger / Ghareeb Asqalani -- Bread of sacrifice / Samira Azzam -- A land of rock and thyme / Liyana Badr -- Hunger and the mountain / Riyad Baydas -- Horses / Zaki Darwish -- The worst of two choices; or The forsaken olive trees / Najwa Qa'war Farah -- The idiot / Tawfiq Fayyad -- The odds-and-ends woman / Emile Habiby -- After the siege, a little before the sun / Akram Haniyyeh -- Garbage / Mahmoud Sayf al-Din al-Irani -- The little one goes to the camp / Ghassan Kanafani -- The uprooted / Muhammad Naffa -- Solo tunes on a zinc wall / Waleed Rabah -- Death of a bird hunter / Yahya Rabah -- The sous vendor / Fadl al-Rimawi -- A longing for the good land / Mahmoud al-Rimawi -- The spectators / Khalil al-Sawahiri -- The sacred river / Mahmoud Shaheen -- Kadima / Sulaiman al-Shaikh -- One eye by day / Yusuf Shruru -- The villages / Mahmoud Shuqair -- Faris Rateeba / Muhammad Ali Taha -- That rose of a woman / Yahya Yakhlif. -- Selections from novels -- Memoirs of an unrealistic woman / Sahar Khalifeh -- A road to the sea / Faruq Wadi -- Extracts from personal accounts -- O Beirut / Rashad Abu Shawar -- Children of dew / Muhammad al-As'ad -- Palestinian notebooks / Mu'een Bseiso -- A memory for forgetfulness / Mahmoud Darwish -- Our sun will never set / Subhi Ghosheh -- Days of my youth / Yusuf Haykal / The first well / Jabra Ibrahim Jabra -- Such am I, o world / Khalil al-Sakakini -- The siege / Mai Sayigh -- Embers and ashes / Hisham Sharabi -- Journey into Hades: Diary of a Palestinian in an Israeli prison / Salah Ta'mari -- A mountainous journey / Fadwa Tuqan.

Nakba day selection