Interlink Books has just released the first published collection of poems by acclaimed Palestinian-American poet Sharif S. Elmusa, Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008, a volume spanning over 20 years of his work.

Elmusa and his family were forced to flee their native village near the Palestinian port city of Yaffa in 1948, and as a result, Elmusa grew up in a refugee camp near Jericho, in the West Bank.

Forbidden by Israel from returning to his home, Elmusa pursued his education abroad, first in Egypt, and then in the United States. The poems in Flawed Landscape provide a moving and vivid expression of his loss of - and immense longing for - his homeland.

A widely published poet, scholar and translator, Elmusa is best known for his scholarly works on water issues in the Middle East, as well as his work on Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry, considered a definitive work covering the genre. He co-edited and contributed to the anthology.

His poems have also appeared in a number of publications, including Poetry East, The Christian Science Monitor and The Baltimore Review. He is also regarded as one of the leading translators of Arabic-language poetry into English. Flawed Landscape is the first definitive collection of his poetic works.

---

"Flawed Landscape is an extraordinary book that verges between the grief of being displaced and the joy of being alive. Elmusa speaks with the anger of the aggrieved, but also with tenderness and understanding for those he left behind and those he meets along the way. Elmusa is a true poet, a yearner for a better life and for the constancy of time."

-Pablo Medina, poet, author of Points of Balance/Puntos de apoyo

"Sharif Elmusa writes with exquisite energy and empathy, and has, for decades, been one of my favorite poets. His work is original and necessary. Celebrate this stunning collection!"

-Naomi Shihab Nye, writer and anthologist

---

Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008 can be ordered from Interlink Books and Amazon.com.