It is a carpet of stories woven on the ground, in Palestine and beyond the borders of identity. Esausti in croce ("Exhausted on the cross"), one of Najwan Darwish's most important collections of poetry, goes into the depths of the recent chronicle, and at the same time inserts it, like the embroidery that is typical of the Palestinian tradition, on a much longer history. It is a real journey in time and space, as well as in the relationships between souls. A physical journey, made up of stages, of reflections on places and cities. Poetry thus becomes the instrument to give substance – finally – to Palestinian invisibility. Invisibility of thought, of life, of women and men, of trees. It is poetry that is precise, sharp, political storytelling.

Najwan Darwish (Jerusalem, 1978) is one of the most important poets in the Arabic language. Palestinian, author of numerous collections of poetry, translated and published worldwide in over twenty languages, Darwish dedicates verses of rare depth and sharpness to his land and the people who are inextricably linked to it. A public intellectual and one of the best-known cultural journalists in the regional press, Darwish represents one of the highest peaks of poetry, not only Arabic, as Raúl Zurita also testified in his preface.