‘By Candlelight’: Short Fiction by Latifa al-Zayyat
Part of our focus, this Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth), is on classic Arabic works by women, especially those at the margins of (or neglected entirely by) critical and readerly attention.
Alaa Alqaisi
Dima Wannous’s ‘Damascus: A Tomb and a Prison’
“We passed a vast area near my house in Mazzeh, its surface covered with unfinished cement buildings. The driver told me it was a residential and commercial development owned by Asma al-Assad. The next day, one torture survivor told me the purpose of the project was to hide corpses[.]”
Ramadan Kareem, ya Gaza
“Gaza does not resemble herself in Ramadan.”
Shrinking Language, Bursting Memory
“Under siege, time is stolen piece by piece, and language shrinks to match the narrow space it is allowed. People abandon long sentences because every additional word must justify the power it consumes, the battery it drains, the risk it takes in that particular minute.”
‘A City Beyond History’: New Poetry by Doha Kahlout
“Press your body to the sea— / it comes out cool, unharmed— / and let tears move across your hidden grief.”
From a Palestinian Love Story: ‘This Stone is Mine’
This excerpt comes from pages 34–37 of Saga Hamdan’s 2024 debut novel This Stone is Mine (هذا الحجر لي), a story of love and loss between Gaza and Jenin.
From Doaa Ibrahim’s ‘A Cloud Above My Head’
In this novel, Egyptian author Doaa Ibrahim interrogates mothers and motherhood through the lens of a violently fraught relationship.
‘Prison in a Burning Tank’
“These are the worst days. I don’t know why I’ve been using superlatives so much lately, or saying “for the first time,” as though my mind were instantly classifying every experience against prior facts or illusions. Perhaps it would be enough to say they’re terrible days, without comparing them to other dark ones.”
Beneath the Howl of Hunger
“And though the world may have looked away, let this much be remembered: we named the hunger. We bore it. We endured. Let that remain.” – Alaa Alqaisi
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