Palestine-a borderless landscape of people, memory, conflict, resilience, and vision-this month locates itself in Words Without Borders, as contemporary Palestinian writers address and establish the multiple senses of place. At the border, Nassar Ibrahim turns practical jokes into metaphorical truths, Azmi Bishara sets the checkpoint to music, and Mahmoud Shukair inspects a guard at both professional and domestic crossroads. Adania Shibli suspends us in a fever dream of silence. Mahmoud Darwish's diary considers enemies, blood, stones, and death. Zakaria Mohammad asks if an exile can ever go home again; Atef Abu Saif sets his emotional watch to "Gaza Time." The young poet Hala Shurouf depicts a city, and a woman, constrained, while the grand dame of Palestinian poetry, the late Fadwa Touqan, bears the gravity of loss. Antoine Shulhut and Faisal Darraj provide contextualizing essays. We thank our guest editors, Tania Tamari Nasir and Taline Voskeritchian, for mapping this intersection of literary arts, memory, history, and place.

Photo courtesy Yishay Garbasz. © 2006 by Yishay Garbasz. All rights reserved.