Samer Abu Hawwash in conversation with Robin Moger

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Palestinian poet Samer Abu Hawwash will be joining us for the launch of the English translation of his new collection, From the River to the Sea (Banipal Books, 2025), joined by his translator Robin Moger.

Originally published in Arabic in the summer of 2024, these 24 poems confront the horrors of the Gaza genocide while weaving them into the longer history of Palestinian exile and trauma. With stark, unforgettable imagery, Abu Hawwash captures both the brutality of destruction and the unbearable weight of witnessing: children’s frozen gazes, the rubble that refuses to be silent, the torment of language itself in the face of war.

This book is more than poetry: it is a lexicon of resistance, remembrance, and testimony. It asks how art can bear witness when words themselves seem broken — and insists on the necessity of trying.

Join us for an evening of conversation and readings as we reflect on literature’s role in documenting violence, preserving memory, and speaking across borders.

### Author Bio

Samer Abu Hawwash (b. 1972, Sidon, Lebanon) is a Palestinian poet, writer, and translator. From the River to the Sea is his eleventh collection of poetry, published in Arabic in 2024 and now available in English. His first collection, Life is Printed in New York, appeared in 1997. In addition to his own work, he has translated into Arabic the poetry of Charles Bukowski, Langston Hughes, Robert Bly, and Kim Addonizio, as well as more than forty prose works by internationally acclaimed authors including Jack Kerouac, Yann Martel, and Paul Auster.

### Translator Bio

Robin Moger is a renowned literary translator from Arabic to English. His translations include works by poets and novelists across the Arab world, consistently bringing vital new voices into English with precision and sensitivity. His collaboration with Samer Abu Hawwash on From the River to the Sea captures both the rhythm and raw force of the original Arabic, making this collection accessible to new audiences while preserving its searing poetic intensity.