The Prince Claus Fund is deeply saddened by the death of Mahmoud Darwish. The Palestinian poet who passed away on Saturday, 9 August, received the Principal Prince Claus Award in 2004. Mahmoud Darwish was “a poet of global significance. A writer formed in the crucible of migration and asylum, he powerfully evoked his experiences in poetry and prose that transcend time and place, drawing on collective memories of loss and longing, and expressing the mutuality of trauma and desire for peace.” (taken from the jury report) Among his legacy are more than 30 published collections of poetry and prose, with translations into 35 languages.
The Prince Claus Fund joins with people all over the world who will miss Mahmoud Darwish. We extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family and friends.
Nothing illustrates the power of Mahmoud Darwish’s literary voice better than his own words. On 1 December 2004, when HRH Prince Friso presented Darwish with the Principal Prince Claus Award at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, the writer had this to say about poetry and death:
“…A person can only be born in one place; however, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare. Poetry is perhaps what teaches us to nurture the charming illusion: how to be re-born out of ourselves over and over again, and use words to construct a better world, a fictitious world that enables us to sign a pact for a permanent and comprehensive peace... with life…”
Read Mahmoud Darwish’s entire speech
The constructive role of poetry, a constant thread through his work, as well as his preoccupation with forms of exile, fit well in the theme of the 2004 Prince Claus Awards, the Positive Results of Asylum and Migration. While Mahmoud Darwish was in Amsterdam to receive his Prince Claus Award, he also gave a reading in the Aula of the University of Amsterdam for an international audience.
Read all the poems Mahmoud Darwish recited on 29 November 2004
Mahmoud Darwish’s work will remain with us, like past and present in these last lines of a poem:
Let it be so! Let our tomorrow be present with us.
Let our yesterday be present with us.
Let today be present in the feast of this day
Set for the butterfly’s celebration,
and let the dreamers pass from sky to another.
From one sky to another the dreamers pass.
From The Dreamers Pass from One Sky to Another by Mahmoud Darwish, in ‘We travel like all people’, published by Uitgeverij Bulaaq on behalf of the Prince Claus Fund on the occasion of the 2004 Prince Claus Awards.
Mahmoud Darwish reciting poetry in the Aula of the University of Amsterdam on 29 November 2004. Photo: Basem Alazawy.
HRH Prince Friso presenting the Principal Prince Claus Award to Mahmoud Darwish in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam on 1 December 2004. Photo: Anthony Donner.
Laureates
report from the jury
Niek Biegman, Chairman, photographer, former Dutch senior representative
for NATO, Amsterdam en Janjina, Croatia
Aracy Amaral, Art historian, art critic and curator, São Paolo, Brazil
Sadik Jalal Al-Azm, Philosopher, Damascus, Syria
Goenawan Mohamad, Journalist and poet, Jakarta, Indonesia
Pedro Pimenta, Filmmaker, Maputo, Mozambique/Johannesburg, South Africa
Claudia Roden, Food expert/historian, London, UK/Egypt
Mick Pearce, Architect, Harare, Zimbabwe, Melbourne, Australia
Fariba de Bruin-Derakhshani
