From Iman Humaydan’s ‘Songs for Darkness’

To celebrate Publication Day for Iman Humaydan’s Songs for Darkness — out today from Interlink Books in Michelle Hartmant’s translation — and we have a conversation with author and translator, as well as two excerpts from early in the novel, below.

She closed her olive-green eyes and sang songs she’d learned from the women in her family. They sang during the wheat harvest, on the threshing room floor, at weddings, and while doing housework. Sometimes they also sang the same songs during mourning periods, but they cleverly would change the melody, rhythm, and tone to suit the occasion. They used their knowledge of rhythm and lyricism to craft songs for different occasions.

Shahira loved singing and knew that she had a beautiful voice. She used to go with her uncle’s wife to weddings just so she could sing. After a while, she began adding things she’d learned from Yazid and his mother’s collection of books. Shahira rarely sat at home with her mother; she was constantly on the move between her house and her uncle’s. She liked to accompany him to his simple local shop and also went with him to help him buy the products he sold.

People grew accustomed to seeing Shahira walking up and down the roads in town, delivering things from her uncle’s shop to people’s homes, always greeting the elders who sat on the bench outside the door. Looking at her you would’ve thought that she was raised on the road, with gravel and stones. She walked toward the valley singing. At times, she walked with her eyes closed, assuring herself that she knew the road by its scents. If she ever got tired, she would curl up under the oak trees and take a nap.

In Ksoura, the passage of time made Shahira forget what she’d learned from Yazid in two long, consecutive summers of her young life. She almost forgot him as well. She hardly remembered any songs, except the harvesting ones. The harvest seasons were deeply ingrained in her memory. So too were images of winnowing the wheat and cleaning away the chaff stuck to the sheaves before the wind changed directions in mid-August. That was always an important day. She used to spend the whole day in the threshing area with all the girls of her age from Ajmat. They collected all the stray, scattered pieces of straw into burlap sacks. Shahira would then take hers to Ikhlas, who crafted it into little dolls she dressed in colorful outfits.

Shahira took many of the threshing songs with her to her new life. Seasons were different there, since there was no wheat harvest in Ksoura. But nonetheless she’d sing these songs when she was working at home or up on the roof, picking olives and pine nuts, or spreading the beans and legumes out on the rooftop to dry.

Reem al-Falla, Wild Gazelle

Beauty of beauties

Delight of lovers, past and present

If only you and me were alone

We would enjoy the melodies of the rebaba

Reem al-Falla, Wild Gazelle

Hello and welcome,

a hundred, a thousand times

You with your kohl-lined eyes

Prancing by in a velvet dress

Your sweet gaze is too beautiful

Your scent is beyond compare

She stands up, shaking dust and grain off her clothes, dizzy from the summer heat. The thin scarf covering her head doesn’t protect her from the scorching sun. She walks slowly down the wooden ladder, holding on tightly as she descends rung by rung. She’s always a bit scared to fall from a ladder. She knows that this is how her grandma in Ajmat died—falling from a ladder onto a stone floor. Though she is both curious and brave, many things still frighten Shahira.

Also read: In Conversation: Songs as Memory, as Solidarity, as Resistance