Past Events

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA
and other poems

by Samer Abu Hawwash

translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger

• Poems of witness that link with Palestine’s long years of existential trauma and severed identity

• A poetry collection that “sees” anew the unspeakable horrors of the Gaza genocide

• A lexicon of graphic poetic sensibility in the midst of a war of extermination

An engaged witness to the Gaza genocide

that’s being live-streamed to the world

This new collection by Palestinian poet Samer Abu Hawwash was published in its original Arabic in the summer of 2024. The 24 poems are an intrepid literary journey into the genocide in Gaza, linking with Palestine’s long years of existential trauma, and documenting the universal human questions that so many are asking in today’s world.

Living, since he was born, in a diaspora crowded with fellow Palestinians, the poet shares with readers the depths of his turmoil and anguish, searing their attention to human pain from the first poem, “The Ruins”, with the image of a girl’s hand jutting up from cracks in the rubble, to the last, “The Scream” – the roaring voice of dust consuming all.  

In the poem, “Sitting in front of a TV screen, I watch the genocide”, the words he wants to say are torn from him, “language has become a torment” and he cannot say what he wants to say; senses are upturned, stupified, suspended, muffled, in a maze.

Robin Moger’s perceptive and passionate translation is profoundly sensitive to the “stuttering shock” of these poems that “explore the edge of what can be made out of poetry, that force us to confront the potential for loss and grief to be endless and unjustifiable”.  This is a poetry collection so necessary for humanity today.

THE AUTHOR

Samer Abu Hawwash is a Palestinian poet, writer and translator, born in Sidon, Lebanon, in 1972. His first poetry collection, Life is Printed in New York, was published in 1997 and this collection From the River to the Sea, his 11^th, was published in Arabic in 2024. He has translated into Arabic works by more than twenty American poets, including Charles Bukowski, Langston Hughes, Kim Addonizio, Robert Bly, as well as over forty prose works by major internationally renowned writers including Jack Kerouac, Yann Martel and Paul Auster.

THE TRANSLATOR

Robin Moger is a translator of contemporary Arabic prose and poetry, and twice winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. His recent translations include Wadih Saadeh’s A Horse At The Door and Iman Mersal’s Traces of Enayat.

The front cover painting and other works inside are by Palestinian poet and artist Raed Wahesh.

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You can read more about the book, and three poems from it here.

ALL WELCOME ON 30 JULY 2025

6.30pm to 8.00pm UK time.

Just email bookclub@banipal.co.uk 
to ask for the Zoom login details,
which will be sent out on 30 July
a few hours before the discussion starts