Ana Min Hunak (I Am From There) | Poem by Mahmoud Darwish | Translated into Urdu & Pakistani Local Languages

The famous poem Ana Min Hunak (I Am From There) by Palestinian poet and author Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) expresses a strong feeling of nostalgia. It shares with the readers a distant memory of what used to be the author’s homeland, Palestine.

Darwish’s personal story, of being forced to leave his village in Western Galilee for Lebanon in 1948, mirrors the experience of over 750,000 Palestinians who were displaced that year. 

When the state of Israel was established, the local Arab population was expelled from their lands. The scale of violence and upheaval was so immense that Syrian historian Constantin Zureiq (1909–2000) referred to it as al-Nakba (“the catastrophe”).

Note:

Poetry translations are often done to convey the meaning behind the poet’s words. And hence that is the best we can do. Translations are often not word to word, and in many cases, translations can never fully capture the poem’s essence – the depth of thought, the layered emotions, and the beauty of the language that make the original poem so powerful.