This essay was written in response to Darwish's book Memory for Forgetfulness along with Leslie Marmon Silko's book of stories, Storyteller. The author, Kyleen Aldrich, discusses the effects of languages disappearing, the loss of culture, diversity, and knowledge of nature and history. She explores Darwish's book as a work that is seeking liberation through remembering and confronting the past in order to retrieve what is lost by capturing actions with words. Silko and Darwish speak of discrimination, displacement, and exile of a people. Aldrich explicates the importance of memory and shows that by remembering, we recognize what is lost, what can be reclaimed and how writing makes it is possible to preserve these memories. She employs writing as history's witness in these two works. Inspired by the words of Silko and Darwish, the author talks about the common misconception of humans who see one another as separate when we are united by our connection with the land. She asks questions such as while the world is changing, what are we doing to save it? This serves the purpose of calling attention to the warning sent out by Darwish and Silko to all that not enough attention is focused on land and culture and what can potentially be lost.
"The Lost and Forgotten: Exploring the Narratives of Darwish and Silko,"
Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge:
5, Article 28.
Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol7/iss5/28