“I wrote the poems for the singers of the Arab world that you mention at a time where their music helped me grieve and dance. Their music is one of the homes I carry with me wherever I go.”
“O you, standing on the verge of the massacre, / Brandish your weapons!”
Two new dream poems have recently appeared in translation, online.
Now I sit alone /
around a circular table /
Now I sit circularly /
around myself
“Around a century later, in Cairo, during the obscenity trial of my novel Using Life, the assistant attorney for the prosecution challenged my defense attorney and the respected literary figures we had called as witnesses to read a section of my novel out loud.”
Writing Through Crisis is a podcast series that, according to organizers, “explores the possibility of recovery through language.”
“Assuming that words’ eyes have also been gouged, this dossier asks: How can literature assist us in reclaiming the capacity to imagine a less monstrous form of togetherness today?”
“The stories center creation, missed opportunities, romance and memory, stuck-ness and entrapment, language and identity, patriarchies and colonialisms.”
At the end of last month, three writers — Mona Kareem, Deepak Unnikrishnan, and Krupa Ge — talked about translation, transience, the Gulf, belonging, and more.
