<p><em>Arabic-English bilingual edition</em></p><p><br></p><p><em>Winner of the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation</em></p><p><br></p><p>Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008) was the poetic voice of the Palestinian people. One of the most acclaimed contemporary poets in the Arab world, he was also a prominent spokesman for human rights who spent most of his life in exile.</p><p>In his early work, the features of his beloved land - its flowers and birds, towns and waters - were an integral part of poems witnessing a string of political and humanitarian tragedies afflicting his people. In his most recent books, his writing stands at the border of earth and sky, reality and myth, poetry and prose.</p><p><br></p><p>Returning to Palestine in 1996, he settled in Ramallah, where he surprised his huge following in the Arab world by writing a book of love, The Stranger's Bed (1998), singing of love as a private exile, not about exile as a public love. <em>A State of Siege </em>(2002) was his response to the second Intifada, his testament not only to human suffering but to art under duress, art in transmutation. The 47 short lyrics of <em>Don't Apologise for What You've Done</em> (2003) form a transfiguring incarnation or incantation of the poet after the carnage. <em>The Butterfly's Burden</em> is a translation of these three recent books. It was awarded the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation in 2008. </p>