Paris Dedicates Mahmoud Darwish Square

Mahmoud Darwish Square (Place Mahmoud Darwich) was dedicated yesterday by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë and President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas.

You can read reports about it from the Palestine News Agency, Palestine Note, and Al Jazeera, as well as from AFP and many other French sources.

The Parisian mayor apparently denied that there was anything political to the dedication.

Delanoë said of Darwish: “He is a great poet, who we want to honor by naming [part] of Paris after him. He is not just any poet [but] a Palestinian poet, a poet whose inspiration is born of his suffering in exile.”

Note: If you have not yet joined the summer reading challenge, you can choose Sinan Antoon’s suggestion, Darwish’s Memory for Forgetfulness. And, for goodness sakes, you can win!