‘Our Loneliness’: A Poem by Hiba Abu Nada

Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian novelist, poet, educator, and nutritionist from Gaza. Her novel Oxygen is Not for the Deadwon the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She held a BA in Biochemistry and an MA in Clinical Nutrition from the Islamic University and Al-Azhar University in Gaza respectively, both of which have been destroyed by Israeli strikes. She was killed in her home in south Gaza by an Israeli raid on Oct. 20th, 2023 at 32 years old.

Our Loneliness

By Hiba Abu Nada

Translated from Arabic by Salma Harland

How alone it was,

our loneliness,

when they won their wars.

 

Only you were left behind,

naked,

before this loneliness.

Darwish,

no poetry could ever bring it back:

what the lonely one has lost.

 

It’s another age of ignorance,

our loneliness.

Damned be that which divided us

then stands united

at your funeral.

 

Now your land is auctioned

and the world’s

a free market.

 

It’s a barbaric era,

our loneliness,

one when none will stand up for us.

 

So, my country, wipe away your poems,

the old and the new,

and your tears,

and pull yourself together.

يا وحدنا

ربح الجميع حروبهم

وتُركت أنت أمام وحدك عاريًا

لا شعر يا درويش

سوف يعيد ما خسر الوحيد وما فقد

يا وحدنا

هذا زمان جاهلي آخر

لُعن الذي في الحرب فرقنا به

وعلى جنازتك اتحد

يا وحدنا

الأرض سوق حرة

وبلادك الكبرى مزاد معتمد

يا وحدنا

هذا زمان جاهلي

لن يساندنا أحد

يا وحدنا

فامسح

قصائدك القديمة والجديدة

والبكاء

وشدي حيلك يا بلد

(المصدر)

Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian novelist, poet, educator, and nutritionist from Gaza. Her novel Oxygen is Not for the Deadwon the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She held a BA in Biochemistry and an MA in Clinical Nutrition from the Islamic University and Al-Azhar University in Gaza respectively, both of which have been destroyed by Israeli strikes. She was killed in her home in south Gaza by an Israeli raid on Oct. 20th, 2023. She was 32 years old.

Salma Harland is a British-Egyptian literary translator who works between Arabic and English. She was a 2022 Virtual Travel Fellow with the American Literary Translators Association; a recipient of one of the Dutch Foundation for Literature’s 2023 Translation Grants; and a longlistee for the 2022-23 John Dryden Translation Prize. Her translations have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, ArabLit Quarterly, Poetry London, and elsewhere.