Memories of Diminishment
On a review that nearly didn’t happen.
Palestine
Laughter Without Joy: Between Gaza’s Reality and Beckett’s Stage
In this essay by Husam Maarouf, he writes: “Isn’t it strange for someone to laugh in Gaza? Here, laughter is not because destruction is amusing or enjoyable—it is a moment of nakedness before the self, a full exposure. One has no choice but to laugh.”
‘Subject: Mirror, Mirror’: An Excerpt
This excerpt from Badar Salem’s “Lonely as a Crowded Room” was translated by the author.
New Poetry in Translation: Enter ‘Butterfly’s Burden’
In this poem, Dalia Taha writes that she “picked up ‘The Butterfly’s Burden’ / and could not put it down.”
![Left to right) Khālidah Sa‘īd, Nāzik al-Malā’ikah, Fadwa Ṭūqān, and Salma Jayyusi.[1] [1] Image from Shi‘r 4, no. 1 (1960). Credit Princeton University Libraries.](https://arablit.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Left-to-right-Khalidah-Sa‘id-Nazik-al-Malaikah-Fadwa-Ṭuqan-and-Salma-Jayyusi.1-1-Image-from-Shi‘r-4-no.-1-1960.-Credit-Princeton-University-Libraries.jpg "Left to right) Khālidah Sa‘īd, Nāzik al-Malā’ikah, Fadwa Ṭūqān, and Salma Jayyusi.[1] [1] Image from Shi‘r 4, no. 1 (1960). Credit Princeton University Libraries.")
Fadwa Tuqan: ‘The Last Flower atop Memory’s Stone’
“The poem itself exemplifies a spirit—uncommon neither for the time nor for the magazine’s cohort—that struggled to break free from past delusions and memories, despite their seductive pull.”
New Poetry after Darwish: ‘In Praise of What Is No Longer Ours’
The great twentieth-century poet Mahmoud Darwish was born on this day in 1941. Today, author-translator Alaa Alqaisi shares a letter to Darwish and a poem, after Darwish’s “In Praise of the High Shadow.”
‘Grief, a Wolf,’: New Poetry by Olivia Elias
Grief, a Wolf, December 31, 2024, by Olivia Elias, translated from French by Jérémy Victor Robert * in these barbaric times….I live like a sick person forced to save […]
New Poetry: ‘The Tent Is Closing in on Us’
My body recognizes the feel of the air inside tents. It’s well-acquainted with the windy nights and the scorching days and everything in between. The humidity, relentless in both summer […]
From Mahmoud Abu Hashhash’s ‘Violation’
Poems from Violation By Mahmoud Abu Hashhash Translated by Wiam El-Tamami My friends, faraway and safe in their houses and streets their offices and parks write to me asking: […]