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No One Will Know You Tomorrow: Selected Poems, 2014-2024
A selection of the exquisite, passionate verse of the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, superbly translated into English
“A lush bouquet of essential poems from one of our species’ most urgent living poets. These are poems of testimony, of presence and the persistence of joy.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!
Born in Jerusalem in 1978, Najwan Darwish is one of the most beloved poets of the Arabic-speaking world. In this definitive collection, which draws from five published volumes as well as new unpublished work, award-winning translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid brings to English-language readers a sweeping trove of Darwish’s most powerful and urgent poetry of the last decade.
In spare lyric verse, Darwish testifies to the brutal and intimate traumas of war, the anguished fatigue of waking up each morning in an occupied land, and the immeasurable toll of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While anchored in the geography of Palestine, his poetry also explores the rich artistic inheritance of the Arabic-speaking world, moving between regions, landscapes, and eras, from the glories of medieval Granada to the rippling shores of contemporary Haifa. In dialogue with poets, philosophers, and seekers from many different traditions, Darwish’s verse, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, pulses with spiritual longing and a sense of battered, disoriented wonder—a witness to both the atrocities we visit upon one another and the miracle that we are here at all.
No One Will Know You Tomorrow is a tribute to the indomitability of the human spirit: its sensitive attunement to beauty and its endurance in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
“A lush bouquet of essential poems from one of our species’ most urgent living poets. These are poems of testimony, of presence and the persistence of joy.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!
Born in Jerusalem in 1978, Najwan Darwish is one of the most beloved poets of the Arabic-speaking world. In this definitive collection, which draws from five published volumes as well as new unpublished work, award-winning translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid brings to English-language readers a sweeping trove of Darwish’s most powerful and urgent poetry of the last decade.
In spare lyric verse, Darwish testifies to the brutal and intimate traumas of war, the anguished fatigue of waking up each morning in an occupied land, and the immeasurable toll of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While anchored in the geography of Palestine, his poetry also explores the rich artistic inheritance of the Arabic-speaking world, moving between regions, landscapes, and eras, from the glories of medieval Granada to the rippling shores of contemporary Haifa. In dialogue with poets, philosophers, and seekers from many different traditions, Darwish’s verse, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, pulses with spiritual longing and a sense of battered, disoriented wonder—a witness to both the atrocities we visit upon one another and the miracle that we are here at all.
No One Will Know You Tomorrow is a tribute to the indomitability of the human spirit: its sensitive attunement to beauty and its endurance in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
- GenresPoetry
225 pages, Hardcover
Published November 26, 2024
15 people are currently reading
254 people want to read
About the author
Najwan Darwish
18 books39 followersNajwan Darwish; born December 8, 1978 in Jerusalem, is an Arabic-language poet. The New York Review of Books has described him as "one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation". In 2014, NPR included his book Nothing More To Lose as one of the best books of the year.
Besides being a prominent poet, Darwish is a leading cultural editor in the Arab world. He has played an important role in developing Arabic cultural journalism by co-founding independent magazines and mainstream daily newspapers, as well as being a sharp critic.He was the chief editor of Min Wa Ila (From/To) Magazine in Palestine,and the cultural critic for Al Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon from 2006 to 2012, amongst other key positions in cultural journalism. In 2014 he became the founding chief editor of the cultural section of Al Araby Al Jadeed (The New Arab), a major pan-Arab daily newspaper based in London.
Darwish is active in diverse media, culture and art projects in Palestine and the Arab world. He was the literary advisor of MASARAT Palestine, the Palestinian Cultural and Artistic Year in Belgium (2007-2008) alongside the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who was the head of the committee. He is the literary advisor to the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest).
Darwish is a speaker and lecturer. Past lectures include "The Sexual Image of Israel in the Arab Imagination" at Homeworks (Beirut, 2008) and "To Be a Palestinian Intellectual After Oslo" at the House of Culture (Oslo, 2009).
Besides being a prominent poet, Darwish is a leading cultural editor in the Arab world. He has played an important role in developing Arabic cultural journalism by co-founding independent magazines and mainstream daily newspapers, as well as being a sharp critic.He was the chief editor of Min Wa Ila (From/To) Magazine in Palestine,and the cultural critic for Al Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon from 2006 to 2012, amongst other key positions in cultural journalism. In 2014 he became the founding chief editor of the cultural section of Al Araby Al Jadeed (The New Arab), a major pan-Arab daily newspaper based in London.
Darwish is active in diverse media, culture and art projects in Palestine and the Arab world. He was the literary advisor of MASARAT Palestine, the Palestinian Cultural and Artistic Year in Belgium (2007-2008) alongside the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who was the head of the committee. He is the literary advisor to the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest).
Darwish is a speaker and lecturer. Past lectures include "The Sexual Image of Israel in the Arab Imagination" at Homeworks (Beirut, 2008) and "To Be a Palestinian Intellectual After Oslo" at the House of Culture (Oslo, 2009).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 5, 2025
How has abandonment
become the keeper of orchards
I do not own?
And how has ruin preceded me
to a city I cannot find?
become the keeper of orchards
I do not own?
And how has ruin preceded me
to a city I cannot find?
December 7, 2024
Brilliant and deft and devastating
February 1, 2025
That one destroyed me a little bit
Read
August 28, 2025Ljóðauppgötvun ársins er palestínska skáldið Najwan Darwish. Beitt, blóðheit og áríðandi ljóð sem minna stundum á Federico Garcia Lorca. Þetta er bók sem ég á eftir að lesa aftur og aftur.
June 11, 2025
This is quite honestly one of the most beautiful collections of poetry I have ever read. Najwan Darwish is the quintessential Palestinian poet of this century, this work translates his Arabic verses impeccably. He is a ghost in his own homeland, he stalks paths laden with blood and tears occasionally to sink back to the earth, kick one knee up, and wax poetic about whatever may be in his sight, trees, the sea, the history of Granada. I have simply not met anyone who can arrange words in a poem quite the way he can.
Favorites were:
In Nature's Cell
Citizens of Dust
A Verse by Hafez Ibrahim on the Shore of Haifa
I Never Knew
Obrigado
As For My Singing
A Dinner Invitation
A Wave of People
Blink of An Eye
We Never Stop
As a Vagabond
I Know This Sea
Lightning Writes Poetry
In Rabat's Night
I Won't Go Back
An Afternoon in Albacín [probably my favorite]
Early Riser
I Bear Only Smoke
A Conversation with Faris Baroud's Mother in the Al-Shati Camp
Take Me, Drag Me Away
The Shelling Ended
Elegy For a Sleeping Child
Nurtured By The Hand of God
In Response to a Poet Who Dreams of Glory
I Saw Trees
No One
I've Often Told You
Breaking Dishes
A Variation on a Verse by Al-Ma'Arri
The River
A Song For Hell
A Younger Boy
If You Only Knew
A Forgotten Poem About Friendship
Favorites were:
In Nature's Cell
Citizens of Dust
A Verse by Hafez Ibrahim on the Shore of Haifa
I Never Knew
Obrigado
As For My Singing
A Dinner Invitation
A Wave of People
Blink of An Eye
We Never Stop
As a Vagabond
I Know This Sea
Lightning Writes Poetry
In Rabat's Night
I Won't Go Back
An Afternoon in Albacín [probably my favorite]
Early Riser
I Bear Only Smoke
A Conversation with Faris Baroud's Mother in the Al-Shati Camp
Take Me, Drag Me Away
The Shelling Ended
Elegy For a Sleeping Child
Nurtured By The Hand of God
In Response to a Poet Who Dreams of Glory
I Saw Trees
No One
I've Often Told You
Breaking Dishes
A Variation on a Verse by Al-Ma'Arri
The River
A Song For Hell
A Younger Boy
If You Only Knew
A Forgotten Poem About Friendship
June 17, 2025
Arabic poetry holds a special place in my heart - the fluidity of language, the expression and painterly way scenes and emotions are described, how horror and beauty go hand in hand and how the works are affected so deeply by the lives, histories and homes of the writers.
This collection came through on all these things I love. Poetry tends to be better on the second or third read, and I imagine that will be the case for this. I found that I struggled to connect with some of the works, and it's not clear what caused this -but that doesn't undermine the technical skill they were written with.
This collection came through on all these things I love. Poetry tends to be better on the second or third read, and I imagine that will be the case for this. I found that I struggled to connect with some of the works, and it's not clear what caused this -but that doesn't undermine the technical skill they were written with.
May 26, 2025
This poem:
Enough
"I have so many friends
sleeping in tombs from different ages-
at night I tell them stories,
more often than I should.
It's for this reason-you who, repulsed by life,
are speeding to your death-
that I want you alive,
that I want to be the one who leaves
this time around.
Come tell me stories and stay
above the ground. I've company enough already
beneath it.
Pull back, now, from this path of carnage-
enough is enough."
MAGNIFICENT!!
Enough
"I have so many friends
sleeping in tombs from different ages-
at night I tell them stories,
more often than I should.
It's for this reason-you who, repulsed by life,
are speeding to your death-
that I want you alive,
that I want to be the one who leaves
this time around.
Come tell me stories and stay
above the ground. I've company enough already
beneath it.
Pull back, now, from this path of carnage-
enough is enough."
MAGNIFICENT!!
March 5, 2025
Galvanizing poems of utter importance and clarity. I couldn't finish before they were due back.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews