Benarroch was born in 1959 in Tetuan/Morocco, between Tangier and Gibraltar. He grew up in a mixture of cultures and languages, Spanish being his mother tongue, attending a French school, hearing the Arabic of the streets and praying in Hebrew. In 1972 He emigrated to Israel and lives since then in Jerusalem. He has published 5 books of poetry and prose in Hebrew and one in Spanish. His poetry has been published in hundred of magazines all around the world.In his first collection of poems in English, "Horses And Other Doubts".Moshe Benarroch touches the themes of immigration, the confrontation with a new country, discrimination against minorities, Bukowski, Paris, Zionism, Israel, love, the family, poetry, poets and life in general. All the poems in this book appear for the first time in book form.In his omnivorous all encompassing poetry, he takes an honest approach, putting truth and honesty above everything. Hailed as one of the leading Israeli poets, Benarroch´s poetry has been published in a dozen languages, including Urdu and Chinese. Julia Uceda considers that Benarroch holds the memory of the world in his poetry, while Jose Luis Garcia Martin thinks that his poems are more than poetry, they are a document. A witness of his time, Benarroch started writing poetry when he was 15, in English, and has always written in his mother tongue Spanish. When he was 20 he also added Hebrew to his poetry languages and he has published six poetry books in Israel. This collection includes all Benarroch's poetry translated into English or written in English and all his books The Immigrant's Lament, Take Me To The Sea, Horses and Other Doubts, The Day The Jihad Destroyed Berlin, The Teachings Of Baraka.
"If I had a nomination vote for the nobel prize he'd be in the running." Klaus Gerken, Ygdrasil editor.
His reputation has been steadily growing and his books have been published in Spain, Israel and the U.S.A. He was awarded the prime minister literary prize in 2008 and the Yehuda Amichai poetry prize in 2012
Genre: POETRY / Middle Eastern
Top 20 in amazon poetry in 2015. Often in n.1 in amazon middle eastern poetry in the last five years.
We Count Our Dead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we go to sleep
we count our dead
When we wake up
we count our dead
When we end the century
we count our dead
When we kill
we count our dead
When we live
we count our dead
When we eat
we count our dead
When we pray
we count our dead
When we celebrate life
we count our dead
When we write a poem
we count our dead.
Ars poetica
~~~~~~~~
Because writing poetry is admitting
our errors
Because poetry is history
exiled from the History books
Because poetry is the bomb of the poor
Because poetry is the language of the dead
Because poetry is escape from ourselves
Because poetry is looking at the face of our mistakes
and our ancestors' mistakes
Because poetry is the first day of the universe
I dare to say this:
I am tired of poets, poems and poetry
I am tired of myself and my double
my light and my shade
For I know that
When I say the word truth I am already lying
and my bed is made of burning stones.
Buildings and people
~~~~~~
It seems that the beautiful buildings
describe better than anything
this city
they are full of black soot
sometimes they are cleaned
and they are beautiful again
just like they used to be
but a few months later
they are full of soot again.
| Language | Status |
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French
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Already translated.
Translated by Jérôme Paillette
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