“However, when my mother died, I started to look at things differently. Reality is harder than it seems for women, especially when they are weak and powerless. Women should stand out from the crowd to evade the destiny of others who are buried alive symbolically.”
“That was a girl who intuitively knew that modesty resides in denying her female identity.”
“For if you have crossed
So have we all”
“…one of the first and pre-eminent Palestinian literary voices in the wake of the Nakba of 1948.”
They named me without asking my permission.
They bequeathed me their bodies’ curses,
then said,
“This is your heritage.
Live in peace with it and smile!”
How lucky they are! They do it in public. They’re shameless—as the saying goes, “Not only God sees them but his servants do too.” They don’t have to worry about a police patrol, or about what people will say.
“The horizon stretched endlessly in front of her. Yusra had forgotten the world was so huge. She left the shore farther and farther behind, and thanked God the sea was calm that day. Far off in the distance, far away, she saw Israeli naval patrol ships looming menacingly on the horizon. They were poised like sea monsters, ready to snatch up the fishing boats. She turned away and gazed out even farther, imagining far-off countries she wished she could visit.”
“Note that you must be a PEN member to nominate a translator for the prize.”
“And remember: talking about periods in fus7a is not insulting, because periods are not insulting!”
“But my work came to the scrutiny of the Libyan authorities who tried to lure me to write about the regime and its ideology which I refused to do.”
“It is Jaber’s Confessions, which is in sensuous, tactile translation by Abu-Zeid.”
“Forthcoming in translation is Ashour’s The Journey, translated by Michelle Hartman and set to be released by Interlink Books.”
