The “Dice Player” exhibition at the House of Wisdom in Sharjah aims to unveil these aspects, revealing a rarely seen facet of Darwish. Behind his well-known poems, we find a child whose first language was shaped by the scent of the earth, a student who wrote his homework in elegant handwriting and neat letters, a teenager who realised early on that words possess a power that could unsettle others, and a writer who reinvented himself repeatedly throughout the various stages of his life.

 The documents and artifacts displayed by the House of Wisdom in the “Dice Player: Mahmoud Darwish” exhibition transport us to the poet’s early roots in his birthplace, the village of Al-Birwa, where his relationship with his parents is revealed with poignant human clarity. His father, Salim Darwish, was a hardworking farmer. His preoccupation with his land led Mahmoud to develop a deep emotional bond with his grandfather, who raised and accompanied him most of the time, to the point where the child believed his grandfather was his real father. After the Nakba, he secretly returned to Palestine and his village of Al-Birwa, hoping to reclaim the land, only to find it completely destroyed. Of that moment, Darwish said, "We lost the right to reside and the right to the land."

His mother, Houria Al-Biqa'i, appears in the documents as a resolute woman, rarely expressing her emotions. She would sometimes playfully tease him with her colloquial phrases. Her stern manner left a profound mark on the poet, so much so that in his childhood he believed she didn't love him. This feeling persisted until he was about fourteen, when he was imprisoned for the first time. There, everything changed. During his mother's first visit in 1963, after being prevented from bringing him bread and coffee, she broke her emotional silence and expressed her feelings for the first time. That moment was pivotal in Darwish's life. His most famous poem, "To My Mother," which he wrote as a letter of apology and confession, inspired him, and it is one of his poems closest to the hearts of readers.

First poem and power of the word

The exhibition's materials reveal subtle details of Mahmoud Darwish's teenage years, a period he lived without official documents, physically present in his homeland, yet absent from it in official records. One of the most prominent of these moments documents his summons to the military governor after reciting his first poem at a school festival in one of the villages of Deir al-Asad, addressing it to a Jewish boy. At that time, Darwish was unaware of the power of the word, nor its awe-inspiring nature, until he was summoned the following day to the military governor's headquarters in Majd al-Krum, where he was threatened and subjected to abuse. His father was also threatened with being deprived of his livelihood if he continued writing such poems. Darwish emerged from the interrogation in tears, repeating the phrase that would encapsulate his early discovery of the power of poetry: "I didn't know that a poem could frighten... until I wrote one."

The school notebooks on display reveal a picture of the student. The disciplined poet who paid special attention to his handwriting and the beauty of his writing, to the point that he even transcribed some of his unpublished poetry collections by hand, avoiding crossing out as much as possible, as if the form of the word was no less sacred to him than its meaning. The exhibits also shed light on the profound impact of his early readings of Antarah ibn Shaddad's poetry on his inner poetic development, and document the beginnings of his leading role in the cultural scene, when he took over the management of the cultural page in the Haifa-based magazine "Al-Jadeed" at the age of seventeen, before becoming its editor-in-chief at the age of twenty.

Refuge philosophy in Darwish's works

The "Exile" section of the exhibition presents Mahmoud Darwish as a thinker who contemplates the meaning of refuge and its psychological and existential effects, through rare texts, most notably his statement in an interview titled "They Have the Night and the Day Is Mine," published in "Al-Adab" magazine in 1970 and preserved in the collection of Beit al-Hikma, where he says: "If we were to compare being a refugee in exile with being a refugee in one's homeland, and I have experienced both types of..." As a refugee, being a refugee in one's homeland is more brutal. The suffering in exile, the longing, and the anticipation of the promised day of return is understandable, natural. But to be a refugee in your own country is unjustifiable, illogical.

The exhibition also reveals a poignant human aspect of Darwish's relationship with correspondence, through a letter he wrote from prison in the 1960s, describing the harshness of daily life: food scarcity, lack of hygiene, cramped clothing, and other hardships. However, what pained him most, as he confessed, was that "circumstances prevent me from writing; until now, I have only written this letter." Nevertheless, Darwish found solace in the act of communication itself, addressing those outside the prison walls: "Tell everyone that the most beautiful gift I receive is letters; so please write to me."

Darwish was not made to be a husband

The exhibition also reflects a special aspect of Mahmoud Darwish's emotional life, through a series of artworks, artifacts, and documentary screens that trace three experiences that shaped his relationship with love. The story begins with "Rita." The name he gave to Tamar Ben-Ami, whose relationship with him began in Haifa before the war brought it to an end.

Then comes Darwish's relationship with Rana Qabbani, daughter of the Syrian ambassador Sabah Qabbani and niece of the poet Nizar Qabbani. He met her when he was 34 during a visit to Georgetown University; she was 18 at the time. Despite the age difference, a whirlwind romance blossomed between them, culminating in marriage in 1976. Rana later described it as an emotional and turbulent affair, forged in the shadow of exile, war, and Darwish's complete devotion to poetry. She summarised it by saying, "He was a wonderful poet, but he wasn't made to be a husband."

The third relationship is with the Egyptian writer and translator Hayat El-Hini, who offers a glimpse into his daily life: an organised poet, a lover of tranquillity, whose home was filled with the aroma of coffee and roses. The exhibition also features a documentary film titled "Mahmoud Darwish," produced by Al Jazeera, in which El-Hini speaks about A brief marriage that lasted several months brought her together with the poet, a union in which, as she put it, "they met with love and parted with love." She also recounts the story of the poem "The Doves Fly," which Darwish wrote for her during that period and recited to her for the first time at their home.