Sekka Summer 2022: The Power of Words by Sekka

Your stories. Your voices. Globally. www.sekkamag.com

BE INSPIRED From Alia Al Farsi's digital gallery. 4

Editor-In-Chief Manar Alhinai Managing Editor Sharifah Alhinai Art Director Maya Al Moukayed Contributing Illustrator Alexandre Troin Foreword Bodour Al Qasimi Featured Personalities Bothayna Al-Essa, Hoda Barakat Marilyn Booth, PhD, Abdulrazak Gurnah, PhD Contributing Writers H.H. Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi , Fatima Alharthi, Jokha Alharthi, PhD, Akram Alkatreb, Shahd Alshammari, PhD, Myriam Amri, Sharon Aruparayil, Marilyn Booth, Mariam Elkholy, Osama Esber, Jamal Fayez, Huda Hamad, Bushra Khalfan, Wafai Laila, Zainab Mirza, Salha Obeid and Shaikha Sabti Translators Nema Alaraby, Marilyn Booth, PhD, Jonas Elbousty, PhD Salma Harland, Sawad Hussain and Sam Wilder Cover Image Mark Pringle About: Sekka is an independent publication and integrated creative platform that is dedciated to arts, culture, literature and opinions from the Arab world, with a focus on the Arab Gulf States. It has been published since 2017 to share the rich stories of the region and amplify the voices of its people. Copyright: © 2022 Sekka Ltd. All rights reserved. Neither this publication or any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Sekka Ltd. Sekka is published three times a year by Sekka Ltd. , a company registered in London, the United Kingdom. For corrections, please e-mail editorial@sekkamag.com. Disclaimer: ISSN 2754-432X (Print) ISSN 2754-4338 (Online) Subscriptions:

By Bodour Al Qasimi

The Arabic word for literature is adab. The word originally referred to an individual’s good manners, elegance, respect and courtesy. The word adab later evolved to encompass literature, poetry, history, oratory skills and philology. ‘Al Adeeb,’ or a man of literature, was revered in medieval Arab society and so enjoyed a privileged life because his words mattered. In this period, poetry and rhetoric were used to celebrate a tribe’s accomplishments and assert power against its enemies. Words were, indeed, mightier than the sword. Today, words still matter. The world is in a fragile state, with everything from a seemingly endless mate change challenges to social injustice as well as deepening racial and ideological divisions. We desperately need words to caress our souls and help us heal. Words, literature and stories are now our refuge, our teachers and our creative space. We have a choice: our words can either have the power to build bridges and understanding between people, or they can deepen prejudice and destroy hope for a peaceful co-existence. As the saying goes, words can be ‘bullets or seeds.’ Writers and poets now have a moral responsibility to plant seeds for a more compassionate world.

If words and language are power, then having no voice makes you powerless. Those who are silenced or overlooked become marginalised, an afterthought, a negligible dot on the vast canvas of life. Writers, poets and creatives must therefore be the conscience of society and have the responsibility to speak their truth, share their stories and help them realise their hopes and dreams. Publishers have a vital role to play, too. Through the books they decide to publish, publishers can be a force for peace by uniting people in times building greater understanding and appreciation of cultural differences. My understanding and appreciation of the powerful role books play in building bridges have been strengthened during my current role as president of the International Publishers Association. From Argentina to Georgia, from Cairo to Nairobi, and from London to Amman, I have engaged with publishers from different markets. Over the past two years, since the onset of Covid-19, the publishing world has had serious challenges to contend with. However, there is still incredible energy and passion running through the industry, igniting our desire to continue publishing stories, empowering voices and readers and, in doing so, building bridges.

nology enables us to engage with the daily lives of others around the globe. Yet, although we are closer to each other virtually, we are at the same time at risk of losing sight of our shared humanity and inherent interconnectedness. We need to be mindful of this, as we all have a role to play. Sekka Magazine does so by telling stories in authentic voices, uncovering talent and sharing Arab culture with the rest of the world … with adab! In this new issue, Sekka plays a constructive role in showcasing Arab culture by sharing the stories and poetry of Jokha Alharthi, Marilyn Booth, Bushra Khalfan and Huda Hamed as well as many other shining lights. It also includes feature interviews with some of my favourite writers from around the world, including Bothayna Al Essa, Hoda Barakat and Abdulrazak Gurnah. I have always found these writers so fascinating, as they give me a glimpse into another world and other cultures. Even if their characters’ day-to-day lives may differ from my own, the stories have a transcendent quality that speaks to me as a reader and always resonates with me as a human being. Now is the moment for Arab culture to be given a platform, not just for new writers but also for rediscovering our legends and ancient writings. There is much talent waiting to be uncovered across the Arab world. I am excited to discover the winning submissions from Sekka’s annual literary prize in this issue. Initiatives such as these encourage new writers, which is vitally important

Under the leadership of His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, member of the Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates and the Ruler of Sharjah, my home of Sharjah has become central to this mission in supporting Arab culture, with its aim to create a dialogue and an understanding with others through books, art, and literature. There is an excerpt from one of His Highness’s speeches delivered in 1995 in this edition, where he calls for the necessity of Arab cultural development so we can be ready to participate in the global cultural civilisation. His guidance and consistency are helping us to build more cultural bridges and enrich our human experience. I would like to see the same in every language and culture from around the world – showcasing talent, telling stories and expressing joy and pain. Think how many wonderful stories are out there, as yet untold. Books, words and literature can spread messages of love and peace throughout the world, so I hope that different cultures approach their differences with the original sense of adab in mind by using elegant words and language to convey respect, gentleness, humility and humanity. We can only hope to resolve humanity’s current challenges with more understanding, education, respectfulness and bridges. I hope you enjoy this edition of Sekka Magazine— its philosophy chimes with my own, and I am honoured to be a part of this edition.

Bodour Al Qasimi President, International Publishers Association (IPA) A trailblazer in the global publishing scene, Al Qasimi is creating a positive impact on the world by pushing IPA’s agenda on the freedom to publish and intellectual property rights. Al Qasimi was nominated IPA President in the middle of the global COVID-19 pandemic, one of the publishing industry’s most challenging phases in living memory. Under her leadership, IPA launched the International Sustainable Publishing and Industry Resilience (InSPIRe) initiative to build solidarity and collaboration between members of the publishing ecosystem. She also oversaw the launch of the IPA Academy, a one of its kind online educational platform designed to support publishers in developing core business skills to build more resilient and sustainable organisations. As the CEO and founder of Kalimat Publishing Group, Al Qasimi has been an avid advocate of the role of books and literacy in enlightening children. Through her own Kalimat Foundation, she has led several campaigns to provide thousands of books hardship worldwide.

Al Qasimi also chaired the committee of Sharjah World Book Capital 2019—an honour awarded by UNESCO. Over decades, her exemplary work to further Sharjah’s contributions as a hub for reading, literacy and culture has culminated in global recognition for the emirate. In 2019, Al Qasimi’s work in women’s empowerment crossed a unique milestone as she established PublisHer. This informal networking body seeks to increase the number of women in leadership roles within the publishing industry. That same year, a partnership between the IPA and UAE-based global philanthropic organisation, Dubai Cares, led to the creation of the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund (APIF) – a grant program committed to supporting literacy, book access, indigenous publishing and library restoration in Africa, chaired by Al Qasimi.

Passionate about supporting entrepreneurship, she established the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Centre ‘Sheraa’ in 2016 as a platform to shape a generation of changemakers in the emirate, positioning it globally as a vibrant start-up hub. Al Qasimi has a Bachelor’s Degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from Cambridge University and a Master’s Degree in Medical Anthropology from University College London.

Words by Sharifah Alhinai

ABDULRAZAK GURNAH: WRITING ADDRESSES KINDNESS

In October 2021, novelist and retired academic Abdulrazak Gurnah, PhD, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born to a father of Yemeni descent in 1948 in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, a British protectorate that is now a semi-independent part of Tanzania, Gurnah migrated to the United Kingdom as a teenager to escape the violence and despair that erupted as a result of the 1964 Revolution.

Initially inspired by his own migration and the feelings of alienation and racism that he experienced, he began to write as he completed his university studies and then joined the University of Kent as a professor of English and postcolonial literatures. Memory of Departure—which details the struggles of a 15-yearold as he migrates from his village to Nairobi to seek a better life in a postcolonial Africa—with Jonathan Cape Publishing in 1987, after nearly a decade of rejection by publishers. Nine other novels which likewise centre on the impact of colonialism and the experiences of migration (often from Africa to the UK) and exile later followed, and a number, such as Paradise and By the Sea, were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Whitebread Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Last year, the Nobel Prize Committee recognised and praised Gurnah for ‘his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.’ The award launched him into greater popularity and wider readership, making him a household name today. I speak with the award-winning author, who is on the cover of this issue, about his creative beginnings, the responsibility of writing about migrants’ experiences and against colonial narratives, the power of stories and his next work. This interview was edited for length and clarity after it was transcribed.

I read in an article in The Guardian, that you began to write in your 20s out of feelings of homesickness and displacement to make sense -

AG: It wasn’t a sudden decision or anything like was more or less disentangling my thoughts and working things out. Sometimes, I thought I was writing poetry, but at other times I also wrote some plays. I just wrote a few notes and this kind of thing. Gradually you work out what feels more comfortable and what feels most productive. You also think, well, the poems aren’t very good, the bit better, and so you carry on like that. It wasn’t a decision to rule things out; it’s just what came to seem appropriate, in practice, over time. From my understanding of what I’ve read, and correct me if I’m wrong, you began to write to ing given you the catharsis that you have been

AG: Well, I wouldn’t use the word ‘catharsis.’ As I mentioned a moment ago, I think what I was doing when I started to write, before I began to

to disentangle things that were in my mind, and writing is sometimes quite useful like this, even if you’re not writing for publication. Writing is sometimes quite useful as a way of understanding your thoughts, for kind of clarifying things for yourself. This is how it started. So I wasn’t looking for relief, if you like, in the sense of catharsis. I wasn’t looking to say that we do this because it’s painful, and when it’s over I will be cleansed, or something like that. It wasn’t anything like that. But it was very useful, as I said, in the process of understanding is different from that, this is what I came to understand. Doing that is like having a conversation with yourself. I think when you get to a point where you say I’m not writing this for myself, when I’m writing this for other people to see, read, share ideas or a story or whatever it is, you’re then, I think, doing something else; you’re making art, if it works. On the other hand, the kind of conversation with the self, it’s not necessarily art; it’s more to do with sorting things out. So I think they are different activities. Of course when you’re writing dressing them in certain ways; you’re not speaking by yourself—you’re making something. And you’re making it with all kinds of layers of things; you have a language you might use, you have illusions you might make for the readers to work out for themselves, sometimes the pleasurable games that you might play just to make it interesting for yourself and possibly for your readers as well.

memoirs, for example, especially given wider -

life has consisted of being both an academic and a writer of novels. So, I’ve written plenty of othwork. Some of it is when somebody invites you to write on an issue, or an event, or something you participated in. So there are various things The memoir does not interest me right now and I don't think it has ever particularly interested ing, let alone writing them. So, I don’t think so. Besides your own experiences as a migrant, where do you derive inspiration for your work,

AG: I don’t know if I can answer where I derive my inspiration from. I’m alive, my eyes are open, I read, I hear stories from people, I hear about people’s experiences, I have my own experiences as well and out of all of this, somehow, sometimes an idea sticks around for several years and I turn it over, and therefore it kind of grows in its own way, it kind of percolates, as it were, and then a moment comes when I want to write this now. So, it’s not something that comes and I say

Not everybody aspires to be internationally recognised. 21

right, I’m inspired, I’m going to write that. Usually the ideas, the stories and so on are already kind of present in some way, just laying around, and then there’s a build up, and you get to the point when you think you’re ready to begin. And sometimes it doesn’t work, and you think you’re ready–or I think I’m ready–to begin, but when, in fact, I do begin it’s not going very far. It trickles cult to do that because once you get your teeth into something, you think no, no, no don’t give up, don’t give up. Sometimes you waste plenty of time just trying to flog a dead horse, make something work, when it’s not working. Eventuit alone and do something else, and then wait for further ideas to surface. So, it’s a lengthy process, whereas inspiration suggests that it’s not a lengthy process; that something comes out from somewhere and hits you. For me, it’s not like that.

so on. So, if you look through, it would be every book. Keep in mind that the literal writing process itself might only be a year or so. The previous to writing might also take a while, as usually there is preparation, reading, researching, writing and thinking, and then the publication process often also takes a year or more. So, although it’s four ing process isn’t that from one book to the next it may only be one year in the midst of all of that; but then production, particularly in this country [UK], is a complicated and lengthy process; publishers have their schedules, so you can’t just say here you are, here’s my book, publish it; they have

How long does it take you to write a novel, on

have various editing processes, which are quite lengthy, as well as the design processes, the cover etc. So there are a lot of things; it is, as I said, a lengthy process. It’s not just you–the writer– sitting at your desk. You may be able to do your job fairly quickly…That was when I was working.

AG: Well, for most of my working life, of course, ing time from my academic duties, teaching and whatever administration I was doing at the university and so on. So, it would vary, it would take several years to find spaces in between things to write, which would probably be vacations or whenever early study leave became available and

Of course, over the past few years, I’ve retired, and then the writing process was very different. I get up every day and write. But it doesn’t diminish how long it takes for a book to appear. So, it’s maybe that it’s less hectic for me because I could just sit and work on the writing, but the process I described still continues, and you still have to wait patiently for the thing to be put through its various stages until it appears.

In novels such as Admiring Silence, you tackle ing into the colonial narratives his father-in-law has of African people, by saying or making up things to please him or at least keep him entertained, such as feigning nostalgia about the you to tackle, problematise and speak against such colonial narratives in the UK through your Arab world, for example, are often more popular outside of it when they feed into orienhave been more popular earlier on or that your work would have been more readily accepted

AG: I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t think that that would have been the thing to make a difference. In a way, there was already a body of work about empire, in fact a huge body of work about empire. There was also another emerging body of work that was critical of empire, from the Caribbean, India and Africa. So, I don’t think that would have been the reason why it took a while for my work to be published and then to receive this kind of recognition, although it was, of course, well-received, there was not a problem with that. pire or the ugliness of empire (for me, anyway) and I don’t think readers in the UK, as opposed

to a kind of popular opinion (I mean people who read)—I don’t think they’re troubled by the criticism of empire. Most of them would probably suppose if you say in a more popular sense, then there is, particularly on the right, as it were, a great deal of defensiveness about empire and about colonialism and the things that happened during colonialism. There is a kind of denial about that, and focusing more on the ‘look what we did for you’ way of speaking. But, you know, it’s a big country and there are many readers, so you don’t need for everybody to agree. Also, indeed, as you know, there is a debate going on now– and it has been going on for decades now– but it has now reached a certain intensity, which is the business of statues being toppled, reparations and the idea of returning artefacts that were taken or plundered from various parts of the world. These are not conversations that have been had let’s say in the 1950s, for example, or the 1960s. It’s only reached that point where they have become open and popular in the sense that everybody knows about this now. This is an issue that has been discussed all over the place—the issue, for example, of museum holdings, or the issue of should reparations be paid, or the issue of why we have statues of enslavers, murderers, or plunderers in public places. Well, that gives you an idea that there is a conversation going on about colonialism and it is quite an intense conversation. But it does mean

that there is on the one hand, a huge defensive body, as it were, including politicians, including the Conservative Party… but also on the other side there are a whole lot of people who share, or at least want to know, more about these issues.

years, do you think that words really have the power to create change (in how we conceive of and interact with the ‘other,’ in connecting people, in bridging cultures and humanising ex-

AG: The simple answer is yes. What makes this enterprise or activity worthwhile is that it isn’t simply to entertain (but I hope it does that as well). It’s not just words. You ask ‘do words have the power?’—but it’s not just words, there are ideas behind words. There’s also a delight and pleasfor you. Now, I get that pleasure from reading. The pleasure is complex. The pleasure is not just because you sit there and think ‘wow, this is lovely’ (although there is that); but it’s an ‘ah, I didn’t know that,’ or ‘oh, this is interesting,’ or ‘this informs me...’. So, in that respect, it’s not just about words, it’s also about learning things, understanding things better, including yourself, understanding other people and situations better and understanding something that happened 150, 200 or 500 years ago, and you see echoes of it in the way we live now, or quite simply knowing things you

hadn’t known before. So, I think it’s a complicated exercise for a reader when you’re engaged by a book. You’re getting all of these things. You’re getting pleasure and information. You’re learning something or understanding something, including yourself. I believe in all of that and I believe also that writing addresses issues in the way we live— injustices, cruelties and unkindnesses– but also the opposite; it addresses kindness. It also addresses and celebrates people who are affectionate with each other, or love each other, or support each other. It’s kind of reassuring for you in a way to read something or see people who possibility exists; that we are capable of kindness. Now that you have been awarded the Nobel Prize, and given the current context of the ongoing migrant crises, do you think or feel that you have a greater sense of responsibility on your shoulders to write and speak about the ex-

AG: I don’t because what I’ve written and said has been what I know about with relation to these subjects, and I suppose I will just continue doing that if that’s how I feel. I don’t only write about that, of course, I write about several other things. I don’t want to be thought of as somebody who speaks for other people, I speak about what I know, what I understand, the way I see things…. Where I’ve been invited to offer

my support in the past, regardless of the Nobel or whatever, where I’ve been asked to offer my support to organisations and events that are to do with these issues, I’ve done so and I will continue to do so. So it doesn’t seem to me that the Nobel Prize gives me any greater authority to speak for other people. I’ll speak for what I know. What kept you going throughout your journey What piece of advice would you give aspiring

AG: You see, not everybody aspires to be internationally recognised. What you aspire to do is have as many readers as you can get because at the end of the day that’s the nature of the profession that you’re in; you want people to read your work. All I can say is it’s not your business. Keep writing. That’s your business. You’re a writer. If readers are not there then there’s nothing you can do about that. If your books aren’t selling, that’s too bad. Write another one.

AG: At the moment, there isn’t time to write anything. I’m speaking to you and to other people who have questions or desire to hear from me and so on. Really that’s all I’m doing. I was in the middle of something, but the Swedish Academy awarded me the prize, so I suppose when time is available I will return to that and see whether it’s still alive and can be revived. If not, I’ll do something else—I’ll write something else. I don’t usually discuss what I’m working on, really.

HODA BARAKAT & MARILYN BOOTH ON THE VOICES OF THE LOST Words by Sharifah Alhinai 26

Born in 1952, Hoda Barakat is a Lebanese novelist who has become one of the Arab world’s most accomplished authors. Writing in both Arabic and French, Barakat, who resides in France, has published a range of works, including six novels and two plays. Her third novel, The Tiller of Waters, received the prestigious Naguib Mahfouz Medal for The Kingdom of This Earth, was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) in 2013. In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, which at the time was awarded in recognition of an author’s body of work. Four years later, Barakat was awarded the IPAF for her novel Barid al-Layl, making her the second female Arab author to receive the distinguished award.

‘How well can we ever know people who have lived through civil wars? How much can we ever really know about the violence and destruction, the losses, the devastation? The overpowering fear they must feel every day?’ writes one of Barid al-Layl’s characters in a letter. The 197-page novel is a heartbreaking story that centres on the lives of six strangers who were mainly forced to migrate from an unnamed geography because of war, which marks a departure from Barakat’s earlier novels, which have consistently revolved around civil war and its traumatic repercussions in Lebanon. Each of the characters confesses their innermost secrets by writing letters to their loved ones. Their raw letters, which reach other characters in the story but never their intended recipients, reveal the characters’ dark battles with their inner demons and their haunting, universal experiences with displacement, poverty and marginalisation. Barid al-Layl was translated from the Arabic by award-winning translator, author and Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of Oxford Marilyn Booth. Booth’s literary translations include Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, PhD, for which Alharthi and Booth famously received the Man Booker International Prize in 2019. The English translation of Barid al-Layl, which was published last year by One World Books under the title Voices of the Lost, marks the third time Barakat and Booth have collaborated together on a literary work. Booth previously translated The Tiller of Waters and Disciples of Passion.

I interviewed Barakat and Booth about their experiences working on a novel that was produced in the context of ongoing migrant crises, how this work differs from others they have worked on in the past and their views on the power of the written and translated word. This interview was edited for length. It contains spoilers about Voices of the Lost.

HB: Does any writer know why they turn to writing? Perhaps some writers do attempt to locate and name motives for their writing, justifying it in various ways. For example, they write to support a just cause or because they feel duty-bound to bring certain truths or facts to people’s attention. There are probably as many answers to this question as there are modes of writing, or the directions one’s writing can take and its aims. With regards to my own writing, I do not have a clear answer to this question. I cannot say exand solitary activity, which does not in itself create connections to other people: in fact, it means working without the participation or encouragement of others. Perhaps what pushes me to write is a desire to delve more deeply into myself, or that allows me to understand it, or to interrogate it. Or, perhaps, to deal with the anxiety brought on by its painful contradictions. But writing, as I self. At the very least, for me, it is about searching for whatever it is that might offer some sort of

harmony amidst insurmountable discord. To put it another way, writing—like all arts—rearranges the uglinesses in our world and ‘recycles’ them to bring out facets of beauty or aesthetic wonder.

MB: Well, why not translation? I don’t think I need to speak to the importance of translation as a key human activity everywhere and in all eras of human existence. More personally, for me literary translation is an art, as well as a responsibility. I can’t really imagine not translating. I do confess that there is usually a moment somewhere in the process, nearly every time I translate a literary work, when I think ‘never again.’ But I can’t stay away from it.

What inspired you to write Voices of the Lost What was the process of working on it like, especially since this work does not centre on wars previous novels do), but seems to have a wider geographic focus (it seems that the characters your own experiences as a migrant feed into

HB: I rewrote this novel quite a few times... The final text of Barid al-Layl thus contained many changes, most importantly, deletions and abbreviations of what had been a much longer

text. And, also crucially, taking risks with narracompressed narrative that is not concerned with seeking to justify more ‘classical’ narrative transitions and links. The reasons for this are, I think, there in the narrative itself. The writers of these letters within the novel are being pursued; they they don’t have mental space for a longer or more relaxed explanation of their circumstances. The novel is not set in Lebanon. That’s because our civil war has come to encompass the entire Arab region. Especially following the ‘Arab Spring,’ it expanded to include migrations to all parts of the world. No doubt, my personal emigration from my country, which has seen the most appalling kinds of destruction, and my sense of alienation—which has not grown less constant or lighter with the passage of time—those circumstances, and all of the factors that accompany them, have led me to react particularly strongly when faced with this reality of millions of human beings moving about with no endpoint in sight. And no one wanting to open the door to them, and they know that perfectly well. It has been bewildering for me, and it has really provoked me to think: seeing these people so determined to take themselves away from their homelands whatever the cost, including the very real possibility of dying. So writing this novel embodied a terrifying question about ‘love of country’! I needed to question everything

that has been written, that has been woven into the fabric of literature, about the pain of exile and the overwhelming sense of longing and love we have for what we call our ‘mother’ country. The bodies of drowned people that are pulled from the sea at regular intervals were—are—people fear that they would be returned there. The numpeople, probably a record number in the history of human migrations. For me, these scenes have been terrifying; they pushed my consciousness, and my nightmares, into new and remote territories. I felt a sense of kinship to these people, in the sense that one cannot assign any importance to the site of immigration itself—that is, it’s impossible to have any sort of ‘project’ or ‘plan’ one would aim to realise in the new country, as was the case in earlier immigration stories—those in which a person would hope and plan to return someday. Now, the aim has become simply to escape the horrors of misery and hardship, which have myriad causes behind them. This was the way I left Lebanon: not because I wanted to be in France, specifically, but solely in order not to remain there. When you are in such a situation, rejecting the homeland can no longer be seen as a kind of blasphemy or betrayal or ingratitude. The homeland has become no more or less than a matter of choosing what we want to carry with us or what we wish to leave behind, perhaps forever. Perhaps what is truly astonishing, in this time in

which we live, is that it has become an extravagance to be able to feel a sense of belonging to one’s homeland—and furthermore, this is a luxury that our people do not have, that whole populations do not have. The loss of any sense of security, of an ability to feel safe in one’s own place, creates an enormous sense of alienation even for people who have not fled; even for those who have remained ‘attached’ to their countries, still there. Meanwhile, other groups of people, who do have complete stability where they are, seem to embrace isolation and a hatred of the foreigner—the Other. They resort to forms of blind fanaticism and an obsession with the self and the emotions thrown up by extreme nationalist ideologies. What drew you to translate Voices of the Lost,

MB: I have long been a great admirer of Hoda’s ous novels. I love the precision, depth and clarity (which doesn’t mean simplicity!) of her language. But also, I was intrigued by this one, quite a departure in structure and voice from her previous novels. Though at the same time, it represents another facet of Hoda’s skill in voicing characters tors or as extradiegetically constructed characters, and how, in doing so, she creates empathy, even (or especially) when the character is not an easily -

cult empathy). And, of course, there is the very important central theme of migration as a process worlds, if sometimes only in the imagination. I liked very much the idea of these characters haveach other’s letters, but then the ‘responses’ of those they were trying to reach being so unreachable. It is an eloquent and ironic commentary on where and how communication happens in this world of ours and who has the right to it. Thus, the novel asks big questions about communication, community and the meaning(s) of morality. Who did you write Voices of the Lost for, Ms Barakat, and what message(s), if any at all, do

HB: I do not claim to have a ‘message’ for readers in any of my novels … If there is one here, it is sent to the readers by the letters in Barid al-Layl themselves. These are words sent to no one, with no aspiration even that they reach anyone, because the letter-writer knows already that they will never arrive. And so these letters may break off partway through the narrative; they don’t carry addresses, and they don’t even divulge any real disclosure. They are words addressed to the night, and they are for the night, written in despair and isolation. Or a complaint, but one that cannot really be voiced and it’s known in advance that it won’t produce any deliverance. It’s a moment, an utterance

that expresses an utter solitude, devoid of hope: it is a complaint that cannot hope for hope. The way I see it, writing a novel is an attempt to describe a condition rather than to prescribe a remedy. What was the process and experience of translating this novel like for you, especially given the ongoing migrant crises and wars that have result-

MB: Of course, I was conscious of this novel’s relevance, sadly, to the ways in which our world is failing so many of its inhabitants. But the novel is a work of art, not a political commentary. It was not a political context that affected the process of translation, but rather the internal fabric of the novel, in particular these voices that compose it. Not only does one have an array of different narrating voices to convey, but, also, these are writing voices rather than speaking voices, which does make a difference. These characters writing their letters are trying to justify themselves partly through the way they write, and one has to take that into account. It isn’t the same thing as translating a faceto-face dialogue, even if ‘dialogue’ is relevant to these letters, and even if, at times, the tone is akin to that of speaking aloud. No, it is a different kind of voice. One review criticised the translation, if I remember correctly, on the basis that some of the language was a bit too formal. But that is precisely what is needed here, as these characters try to

sound as ‘respectable’ as they can, in the terms that the larger society has demanded of them, even as no attempt at ‘respectability’ is going to help them in the end, given how viciously the deck is stacked against them and others like them. This reviewer did not seem to have attended thinking about the linguistic register appropriate both to these characters and to the genre in which they express themselves within the novel. The epistolary novel has a long history, of course, across different literatures; this one is quite different in terms of who the letter-writers are and why and in what contexts they are writing. A related challenge concerns a point I mentioned above—conveying these characters sympathetically, empathetically, as Hoda does, even truly immerses oneself in the language of the original, one can see how to do that—another answer to the question ‘Why translation?’ Voices of the Lost highlights the dark experiences and thoughts of immigrants, all of whom many novels, Ms Barakat, yours does not provide readers with a ‘happy ending,’ a glimmer of

HB: This is true! Because I don’t have any solutions. I am not one of those writers who know what the solutions are. We writers—especially Arab writers, most of whom are considered to be intellectuals, are swamped in a tremendous and continuous chatter that seems only to target ‘solutions.’ We have a terrible, stomach-churning surfeit of opinion-makers, who seem to know all the solutions and how to get there. The media, the internet, have created a tidal wave of experts and prophets, and every one of them has their apprentices and their followers and their millions of ‘likes.’ They dedicate their time to guiding us, expounding their combative views with which they intervene in all areas of life without exception. … To return to your question, no, in this novel, there is no happy ending; it doesn’t offer any hope or predict any rosy outcome. The ending came naturally as an outcome of the narrative. Ms Barakat, we meet the main characters and get to know their stories through letters that they’ve written to lovers or family members which end up falling into the hands of other

HB: These are letters that do not reach their addressees. Perhaps what this does is to intensify the sense of these characters’ isolation, to think about how communication between people is in-

terrupted, broken—even between close relations. This letter/this scream continues to hover in the air, to hover in the absurdity of what happens to lives that no one concerns themselves with. I wanted to listen carefully to these voices whose pleas for help are in vain. To think about this desolation and the cessation of communication in a world where new modes of communication and media are more overwhelmingly present everywhere than they ever were before. You can have thousands of nominal ‘friends’ and yet be huddled alone in a dark corner somewhere, in front of a lit computer screen on which you aren’t actually looking at anyone. Windows, doors, portals— openings none of which have any real meaning. I acknowledge that it is a harsh novel and not the sort that promises an enjoyable read lying on a beach during your summer break. But this is where I am; it is what I have to offer. Dr Booth, what are your thoughts on the Arabic-language books that get translated into English by publishing houses and the process be-

MB: I’m glad to see a greater variety and number of works being translated and published. But much more needs to be done. For one thing, books from an earlier period need to be taken up.

For pre-twentieth-century works, the Library of Arabic Literature (New York University Abu Dhabi) continues to provide an outstanding service, producing affordable bilingual editions with superb, carefully introduced and glossed translations. We need something similar for more recent works— not always necessarily bilingual editions, but attention to important works through excellent literary translation and historically precise introductions. We also need more funding! There are some initiatives (PEN, and the fact that the IPAF prize in Arabic literature comes with a subvention for translation, as the American University in Cairo Press Naguib Mahfouz award has long done). But we need much more. Translators already work very hard, and often without compensation, to get publishers to take works. We need support. But I would also say that another welcome change is the greater number and diversity of translators, and this surely means a broadening of the scope in translated titles. Ms Barakat, your work has been translated ently has it been received around the world ry that your works are read as ethnographic texts by those outside the Arab world in particular, which is something other Arab writthat your focus on war and conflict in your

work feeds into the stereotype many have of the region, of it being war-ridden and inher-

or what the biggest maladies are—in the societies that produce these translations. But let’s pause instead to think about our responsibility as writers.

HB: With regards to translated works and the fear of one’s work being subjected to an ‘ethnographic’ reading: well, this does exist, and one can see it in the publishing and distribution of works as well as in critical responses to them. But personally, and Hajar al-Dahk came out in translation, I have not faced this. Is this simply my luck? Perhaps. But I think it is important to regis-

We want, and we work for, recognition and profit; or, we reject the money and renown, and we know exactly how to reject them, whatever the price, and how to focus on what is essential to literary creation. In large part, we are responsible for the outcome of such choices, or at least we are more responsible than anyone else or any

‘ethnic’ novels, or exoticising novels, which favour a simplifying view of the Other; one way to see these is not so much as literature but as products available in the entertainment market. Readers prefer—and publishing houses try to offer—a variety of literary products, and their portrayals may ticular novel circulates, how well it does, will depend on locating it within an appropriate market and riding the crest of its appeal in domains that may have little or nothing to do with literature. It might have some kind of particular political resonance, or the pitch might concern a social issue, and all of this will be shaped by current trends. For instance, there’s the example of some novels by women that have attacked patriarchal Muslim societies but are not serious works of literature. This is a well-known phenomenon, and there is no need to enumerate examples of these works; they have a lot to do with whatever is trending—

would say that, even though I have very strong skills in French, and have written texts in French when that seemed the right thing to do, and they were published, I have found that to write a work in Arabic, as I have continued to do, is an essential part of the writing itself—of what the text is, and what it becomes. Joining or belonging to the Francophone world is in a sense moving to a different world, which has its own rules. Writing in French has been utterly legitimate for writers from former French colonies, who often did not learn Arabic in school; they were not taught how to write in their mother tongue. This was an earlier generation, and then they were joined by those who emigrated from their original countries and lost their languages, and so they wrote in another language, producing a text whose sensibility remained an Arabic one. But I do know Arabic thoroughly, and I love this language; why would I write in any other? Especially since the translations are there, and can come along after the original.

M E C T

MY NOV ELS ARN CL IMIN TO OFF We also have to acknowledge that publications which do well in the market when they are closely linked to a particular political event (and some writers ride the wave of this) are not necessarily the best literature that we have to put forward before readers. What happens when the eruption of a war in a particular region pushes forward certain works and translations? The responsibiliquiesce in certain writerly practices that would enhance a work’s circulation is simply not in the nature of literature. For example, following the explosion in Beirut’s harbour, I refused invitations to comment in the media where it was clear that what was expected was a kind of lamentation and self-flagellation, an expression of despair and anguish, without attention to writing as an act in itself, according to the criteria of autobiographical writing. Withdrawing from these sorts of market circulation can be costly; but participating in media/publicity in a superficial and hasty cultural scenario is not appropriate to me and it does not recognise the writing that I do. Dr Booth, you mentioned in a previous interview that translation cannot be separated from -

MB: Writing in general cannot be separated from politics: it is a kind of politics. The best imaginative writing stretches our political minds, often without our being aware of that: it is not necessarily overtly ‘political,’ but that makes it no less political in a larger sense. In terms of writing from the Arabophone region, it is important to offer as wide a range of writings as we can; to not limit itics (as I think sometimes tends to be done). To think ‘politics’ more expansively, through the lens of the amazing novelists, short story writers, poand in the past. To continue to push publishers to support works of outstanding literary merit.

Ms Barakat, do you truly believe that words do you wish to see, if any, as a result of your

Whether words have the power to create change, I cannot judge. I think they do—surely, they do— but right now we are living through extremely difcapacity to change for the better or even to listen.

HB: I am going to answer you frankly, and in a way that negotiates between making an assertion, on the one hand, and a genuinely modest or self-effacing perspective, on the other. When I write, I am not thinking at all of any ‘impact’ in the world or on the reader. I know very well that my writing does not push beliefs or convictions that it means to propagate or preach. My novels are not claiming to offer ‘truths’ or to correct ‘the course of history.’ I will even go so far as to say that this is not of any interest to me. But if my text can, even for a moment, stir up feelings, not these feelings be the beginnings of questions asked? And then, might not asking questions be a

A similar question goes to you, Dr Booth: Do you believe that words–in this case the translated Additionally, how do you navigate the worry that many translators have of words losing their

MB: A work worth translating, translated well, will not lose its impact. Much of the art of literary translation consists precisely in pondering how to maintain the power of words—the power of the work’s voice(s). I choose to translate works that I

HB: Yes. Or perhaps I should say: Of course there are. In my head, and on some of the bits of paper around me, there is a new novel. For me, every new novel is an adventure of discovery. The subject? That is what I cannot see in full until the last word is written.

MB: I have translated an important 19th-century novel for which I am seeking a publisher. I am beginning to work on a couple of contemporary novels, but have not yet found publishers. Of course, I also continue to pursue my academic research on literature, translation, and feminism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, topics close to my heart. I would love to translate more 19th-century works, and I think there is great receptivity to these now, both in university settings (with increasing attention to the Nahda, or 19th-century intellectual and literary movement) and beyond. Hoda Barakat’s answers were translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth.

A work worth translating, translated well, will not lose its impact. 39

BOTHAYNA AL-ESSA: LITERATURE SAVES US YEARS OF PERSONAL GROWTH Words by Sharifah Alhinai 40

Bothayna Al-Essa was only six years old when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. Like it did for many Kuwaitis, the invasion left an indelible mark on the young Al-Essa, who remembers watching her parents store bags and cans of food in their basement, bury their jewellery under a tree in their garden to protect them from theft and cover all the windows in their house with tape out of fear of an imminent chemical attack. 42

Al-Essa was forever changed by what she saw and experienced during the occupation. Prior to the fateful summer of 1990, she had viewed life through a colourful lens of innocence, but the sounds of bullets that echoed in her ears and the tanks that shook the streets they rolled on during it dimmed it, and made her recognise the darkness that lurks in the world for the very first time and analyse it closely. For a long time, Al-Essa knew that she wanted to write about the invasion, and in 2021, she did that through her latest Arabic novel, al-Sindibad al-Ama: Atlas al-Bahr Wa al-Harb (The Blind Sinbad: Atlas of the Sea and War). A work of fiction, the 325-page novel centres on an honour killing that takes place before the invasion, and the aftermath it breeds over decades until the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. With the relative ubiquity of literature about the invasion, Al-Essa wanted to present something new. She also wanted to tackle the issue of honour killings, which has been particularly pressing in Kuwait in recent years, where they still occur. ‘I needed an incomplete crime, a murderer who planned to kill two people but only ended up killing one in the beginning. In 1990, when the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait occurred and the prisons were opened in the process, many prisoners became free in the occupied country, as order, the law and accountability were absent,’ says Al-Essa. ‘For artistic purposes, I needed to have a character enter

prison and then leave it in changed political and social circumstances and see how they would behave…. An honour killing was the perfect choice.’ ten more than ten novels and creative collections as well as essays throughout her journey, tackles issues of social and political importance in her work. Taht Aqdam al-Umahat (Under Mothers’ Feet) and Kabirt Wa Nasit An Ansa (All That I Want to Forget), for example, centre on patriarchy, the oppression of women and women’s rights. One of her most popular novels, Kharait al-Tih (The Maps of Wandering), highlights the issue of kidnapping ents whose only son is kidnapped by a criminal ring in Makkah during Hajj (the annual Muslim pilgrimage). ‘I had never intended to write about this subject matter. My plan was simply to follow a family who had lost a son during Hajj, but the unravelling events took me there,’ says Al-Essa. ‘When I was writing The Maps of Wandering, and as I was grappling with research, I was shocked to see that this phenomenon [kidnapping] is widespread in many regions, and that the majority of the victims are black, immigrants, refugees, illegal residents and people who live below the poverty threshold. They are individuals who the system does not protect; they are always seen as human surplus, or human waste if we are to use Zygmunt Bauman’s cruel term.’ She adds, ‘I am happy it went that way. If I can shed light on things that we do not realise are happening around us,

I would like to do so through writing.’ The novel was banned in Kuwait because it tackles child molestation. ‘In 2019, she published her 2019 dystopian novel Haris Sath al-Alam (The Guardian of the World’s Surface), which raises the question of creative freedom and censorship. I ask her, ‘Why did you choose writing in particular, as opposed to other avenues for artistic expression, to shed a light on issues of importance?’ ‘Maybe because it is the only thing that I am really good at. And because I love words: their potential, their conciseness, their musicality. And because I love the chemistry that arises between certain words, especially if it surprises me personally,’ she tells me. ‘And lastly, because it is a perpetual gateway to the imagination, which is the most important of all human faculties, in my opinion.’ Al-Essa did not always set out to become a writer, however—at least not seriously. The 39-yearold studied finance in university after she was encouraged to enter the Department of Science and Mathematics in high school due to her excellent grades in those subjects. Though her heart leaned towards language and its beauty, the bookworm, who used to read books below her desk during class, trusted her teachers’ advice and gave in to the overwhelming view that maths and science were superior to the arts. For eight years after her graduation from university, tor until she decided that her love for reading and writing was too strong for her to remain in the

path she felt she never should have been on to begin with. She resigned from her job, and began to write full time after writing on the side for years. A number of her novels, including Saear, have received multiple nominations and awards, and All That I Want to Forget, was translated into English in 2019, after it had enjoyed wide success in Kuwait and the larger Arab world. In addition to establishing herself as one of Kuwait’s leading and best selling authors—known for her dark and bold style of writing and socially and politically relevant themes—in 2016, Al-Essa co-founded Takween, a bookstore, publishing house and platform for cultural dialogue in Kuwait. Through this enterprise, she aims to contribute to the achievement of a cultural transformation in society with regards to the values of freedom, pluralism, tolerance and basic rights. Since its inception, Takween has published the work of notable Arab writers such as Omani author Bushra Khalfan and Saudi author Ashraf Fagih, and the translations of works by Franz Kafka, Noam Chomsky and Octavia Butler. Today, Al-Essa feels privileged to be able to live and breathe literature every day and to be her own boss, after only dreaming of doing so for years. In addition to raising her family, the mother of three spends her time writing, reading and selling books and engaging with fellow writers through workshops to elevate the literary scene in the Arab world. For an individual whose being and livelihood revolves around words, it comes natural to ask her about what power she believes they hold in

changing the world in any shape or form. ‘I perliterature. Despite all the novels, poetry collections and plays that are written and published daily, our problems still exist unchanged,’ says Al-Essa, who grew up reading the works of Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll. ‘But I also do not want to underestimate the value of literature, which I personally feel in my own life. Literature saves us conceived notions, or what we call dogma. What is even better is that it enhances our emotional sensitivity towards the world. No two readers have the same response to a book, so my answer is very subjective, but if this is what happens with me, then it must happen with so many others.’ For Al-Essa, the books that left a life-altering impact on her and changed her world include The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, The Psychology of Peoples by Gustav Le Bon, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and al-Takhaluf al-Ijtimai (Social Backwardness) by Mustafa Hijazi. To stay with their readers, a novelist’s work must have, ‘a story. Yes, a story in the traditional sense of the word, something that the child in every reader longs for, and something that brings out the passionate intensity of the experience,’ she believes. ‘And yet, this might just be my taste.’ Bothayna Al-Essa’s quotes were translated from the Arabic by Salma Harland.

LITERARY PRIZE

With the aim of increasing the literary output of the Arab world, Sekka launched its first literary prize in October 2021. Submissions for nonfiction, fiction and poetry written in English by those from or residing in Arab countries were open for two months, during which hundreds of entries were received. The winners of the first and second place submissions in each category, which are listed below and published in the pages of the issue, were judged and chosen by Jonas Elbousty, PhD, Afra Atiq, PhD, Shahd Alshammari, PhD, and Amal Al Sahlawi.

Myriam Amri for ‘An Archipelago of Grief ’

Fatima Alharthi for ‘Pear’

Sharon Aruparayil for ‘Shoeboxes in the Sky’

Zainab Mirza for ‘The Drive Home’

Shaikha Sabti for ‘A Relationship with My Dad’

Mariam Elkholy for ‘Post-war Pubs’

Shahd Alshammari, PhD, is a Kuwaiti-Palestinian author and academic. She is the author of Notes on the Flesh and Head Above Water: Reflections on Illness. Alshammari teaches literature and has written a number of stories and creative nonfiction works. Her research focuses on illness narratives and disability studies.

‘The fiction submissions were very interesting to read, with a variety of themes and topics. We struggled to choose the winning entries because there was such great work. We saw a variety of subgenres including some dystopian, surreal and realism subgenres. What stood out was the significance placed on critiquing society – a lot of social tion submissions are always more vulnerable than fiction because there is an immediate pact between author and reader – the author is telling the truth. In Arab societies, it seems to me that nonsaddens me greatly, because the essay form, the memoir, the autobiographical genres are all very but fear society’s judgement. It is a very intimate genre. Having said that, we received a few powerful submissions dealing with death, the body and loss – all very human and universal experiences. The submissions tell us there are so many powerful voices waiting to be discovered. I believe we need more publishing houses that are open to authors writing in English. I think it would change the reception of works in English. I can

see that Sekka always supports talent and does not discriminate based on gender, race or the language chosen by the author. I wish more magazines and publishing houses had the same vision. We need publishing houses with editors, editorial committees that are serious about the type of work that gets published and promoted. approach to a topic that is underexplored. The language, plot and characterisation are all so well done. Craft and content were very important position. We also hope to see more work that deals with diversity, minorities and voices that need to be amplified. “Shoeboxes in the Sky” does that very well. “The Drive Home,” which powerful and surprising, filled with gaps, plot twists and a wonderful pacing. Dialogue especially stands out in this piece, and we were invested in the character’s well-being. I loved the careful construction of scenes and pacing of events. the internal monologue is also done really well.

egory, “Archipelago of Grief,” is powerful in its treatment of grief, one of the lesser understood and often experienced human emotions. It is universal and relatable and does not shy away from expressing pain as it is. The entry that won second place, “Pear,” deals with society’s pressures and expectations of ideal femininity and addresses an issue that is not usually addressed: women’s relationships with their bodies. I appreciate the originality and the boldness. In the future, I hope to see more literature produced that deals with psychological tensions and grapples with identity, the body, the expression of hybridity, and I certainly hope to see more nonfiction produced. I want to see more annual literary prizes, more competitions and more publications. I want support from governments and literary festivals. I believe there is quite some undiscovered talent in the region and it is our duty to support it, whether as creative artists, professors, writers, publishers or even as government entities or NGOs.’

Amal Al Sahlawi is an Emirati poet from Sharjah who studied Arabic literature at the University of Sharjah. She is the author of I Had to Postpone You, a collection of Arabic poetry. Al Sahlawi has participated in and contributed poetry to a number of cultural events, such as at New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE University, Sharjah’s House of Poetry and the Emirates Writers Union. The themes she explores through her poetry include womanhood, philosophy, existentialism and the anxieties of modern life.

‘I was generally impressed by the number of submissions and the originality of the pieces. Most of the submissions show a raw talent that hasn’t been polished yet. I loved that a lot of them found a way to connect to their heritage through poetry, but I’m mostly impressed by those who addressed the modern human struggles. I believe literature is becoming a subject of interest to this generation, and the impact of this generation will be clear within years from now. I’m very hopeful and full of anticipation.

My ultimate dream writers rise to their and to see our herit read and celebrated 62

with My Dad,” represents a deep perspective; it’s quite metaphoric and symbolic, which serves the greater purpose of poetry. I loved the vulnerability and the ability to demonstrate this story from a new angle in the poem that won second place, “Postwar Pubs.” Overall, both poems represent a lot of possibilities and capabilities, and I’m interested to read more from the poets. My ultimate dream is to see Arab writers rise to their highest potentials and to see our heritage and literature read and celebrated worldwide.’

is to see Arab highest potentials tage and literature d worldwide. 63

Jonas Elbousty holds an MPhil and PhD in English Studies from Columbia University. He has taught at Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Al Akhawayn, Columbia University and Yale University. He is a writer, literary translator and academic.

My hope is to see m put their pen to pap their quotidian lives and flows. He is the co-author of three books, and his work has appeared (and is forthcoming) in Michigan Quarterly Review, ArabLit, ArabLit Quarterly, Asheville Poetry Review, Banipal, Prospectus, Sekka, Journal of North African Studies, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures and Comparative Literature, among others. His translation of Mohamed Choukri’s two short story collections, Flower Crazy and The Tent, is forthcoming from Yale University Press. Elbousty has received many awards, including the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, the A. Whitney Griswold Faculty Research Fund and the 2020 Poorvu Family Award for excellence in teaching at Yale University.

more. We didn’t have a chance to evaluate more pieces as we had wished, and I hope this category receives more submissions in subsequent years of the Sekka prize.

‘I was so elated to see that many young people in the Arab world are writing short stories. This is evidenced by the vast number of submissions we

in the Arab world crafting riveting and moving stories is both heart-warming and inspiring. We received a small number of submissions in the

egory is an unequivocal indication of the youth’s ing, in particular. Some of the pieces submitted for the Sekka inaugural literary award are both fascinating and deeply moving. Furthermore, a few pieces showcase the participants’ understanding and familiarity with the art of short story writing: character development, climax, dialogue, imagery, etc.

when the submissions include excellent pieces. reading. “Shoeboxes in the Sky” and “The Drive Home” are two riveting pieces capturing the read-

more young people per and write about s, with their ebbs

ers’ attention and imaginations; the two writers use vivid descriptions that appeal to the readers’ senses. In short, their usage of imagery is superb. sions, “Archipelago of Grief” stood out from my explores the nature of death and the long-lasting grief human beings endure when faced with the loss of loved ones. The cultural details that are unlikely familiar to English readers are very lucid in this piece. I want to congratulate Sekka for this amazing initiative. Awards like these encourage young people in the region to write about and express their feelings, fears, aspirations, hopes and dilemmas in beautifully woven texts. My hope is to see more young people put their pen to paper and write about their quotidian lives, with their ebbs and

Afra Atiq is an Emirati poet and scholar. She holds a PhD in Media and Creative Industries and a Masters in Diplomacy. Her research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals. Her research focuses on education, social media effects and the Arabic Literary Sphere. With a passion for languages, she writes and performs in a blend of English, Arabic and French.

I hope writ region kee stories and

She has been featured on numerous international platforms in Kuwait, India, Germany, and the UK. Locally, Afra has showcased her work, most notably, at Expo 2020 Dubai, Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature, Dubai Opera and The Louvre Abu Dhabi. Community and education are at the core of everything Atiq does, and she dedicates much of her time to school visits. She is a founding member of Untitled Chapters, a community of Emirati women writers. ‘I was impressed by the volume of poetry submissions and the diverse range of voices and topics. I think that by submitting to this literary prize, the writers showed courage as well. The submissions say that there is an interest in writing and particularly poetry. This tells me that the appreciation for the craft is evident; however, there is literary prizes are important, because they raise the bar and give writers a reason to polish and

ters in our ep telling their d using their voices.

elevate their work. I think community and critique will be key, moving forward, in order to facilitate the growth of the writers and writing community. The winning poem, “A Relationship with My Dad,” gave me a glimpse into the writer’s world. I could hear her unique voice and really appreciated the storytelling. This poem stayed with me long after I did its job. It moved, with vulnerability, across a place that the writer allowed the reader into, while existing in a hybrid prose/poem space. The use of multiple languages added to the intimacy of the poem, which was cleverly done through dialogue. Raw though it is, the poem began and ended with an image, which brought the experience full circle. I hope that all the writers keep writing and reading. I hope writers in our region keep telling their stories and using their voices. Above all, I hope the value of their voices is always felt and understood, by the writers and the audience.’

Myriam Amri is a Tunisian writer and visual artist. She is 27 years old and is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Harvard University. Her research and creative practices investigate capitalist imaginaries and materiality in North Africa using nonfiction, photography and filmmaking. Her recent writings have appeared in Rusted Radishes, MashallahNews and Kohl Journal.

An Archipelago of Grief Khaled was twenty-seven years old at the time. There were not many things known about him, not many truths, just rumours, and always vague ones. That he was one of these men you could never quite get out of your head. That even years later, his face would still haunt you. Actually, no one ever said anything upfront about him. Rumours were just things everyone knew, cloud-like ethereal stomundane conversations and across words. People did not speak about him around us; friends of his we met years later would rarely mention his name, and when they did, they would whisper it to themselves while turning their gazes away as if they had been told to keep his existence a secret, a thing of the past that can never be uttered back to life. He was attractive, with an angular face, a jawline that seemed to cut through steel, a slender body, nervous, long, and stretching without any disproportions as if it seamlessly came into shape with the world. He had slanted almond eyes that always looked smaller than expected because he laughed very often, and when he did, his eyes lengthened across both sides of his face until they

became thin lines with black, brilliant rocks inside them. He laughed at everything, genuinely eating the world with his glee. There were old cassettes of him laughing by the beach, laughing at my father, laughing with children. In all the photographs of him, he laughed, his lips broadened, his entire face stretching from the edges of his mouth. In the videos, when he laughed, his large shoulders shivered, and at those moments, he was suddenly a bit out of place—too long, too lean, too brown— but it was an endearing out of placeness, as if he became more real with the shudders of his body. Yet, it was not his beauty that made him stand out. It was the way he existed around things, carelessly yet so carefully, how everything was present to him, how everything had to be touched, imagined and enjoyed. He was reckless, but it was never a dark desperation but a recklessness for life, a desire to exist without compromises, fully in the moment. Was it because he was already carrying his death inside him?

He moved to Morocco to study law. He fell in love with a Moroccan girl. Omi refused to wed them since for her, Moroccan women were witches casting spells on attractive middle-class Tunisian men. Omi was our household matriarch, tyrannical and stubborn, although she exhibited the outer skin of a sweet and overweight grandmother of eight children. He fell in love again, with a tall, thin model with huge brown eyes and a laugh that resembled his. She never got over him. She waitwedding day, when she saw my grandmother, her she only ever loved her son. She married a quiet man, maybe to please or maybe to move on, and she found other ways of loving when she had her two children. Khaled had cancer—for many years. He died at twenty-seven. Once, I stumbled into his room, a few months before his death. It is my only memory of him. He later, to scare each other, we would pretend that he haunted the place and that our nightmares came from him. None of us truly believed that. Everyone knew that in our world, there were no real ghosts and the dead never stayed around. Yet, some of us had watched foreign horror movies and liked to imagine we had ghosts, too. We

knew it was not really possible. Our family homes always changed, our furniture broken down into pieces or sold away on a whim. Sentimental value was not a language we spoke, and even when houses still stood on their grounds, no one kept the documents, photographs, or dusty furniture suitable to Western-like ghosts. When we remembered that, the game quickly became boring, and we resorted again to scaring each other through local means.

dark, with heavy curtains, massive wood furniture, paedia volumes. These were the books no one read or even knew how they were acquired in the bookcases. Khaled was on a massive red velour baroque bed, the ones we think only exist in Egyptian TV dramas but that have actually been built our earliest memories. Beds tended to move in

the family. It was a strange affair, but family beds always had multiple lives, passing from one house to another, from a sibling to a cousin. All the beds were part of the family economy, from nuptial crème pink beds to nurseries to the wood beds the family carpenter made. The carpenter was a sible for a large part of the wood furniture in the aunts made the entire tribe change and never use a permanent carpenter again. The bed Khaled was on probably had begun its life as someone else’s bed, most likely one of his sisters’ marital bed, so it did not escape the rule. Beds of the dead niture and beds completed their lives, at Omi’s house. She liked to hoard things and had a certain knack for changing bed colours, the baroque bed still around today but the red velour now deep, dark blue. Khaled was almost naked, with only black shorts on. His body, his tall body, seemed too skinny. His pale skin was covered with red dots, small red spots everywhere, around his torso, across his arms, on his hips and throughout his legs. He was lying on the bed, his body shivering as if haunted, moving in motion with the screams coming out of his mouth. He was shaking from pain as a desperate whimper echoed from his lungs to the room, in a single and long, long cry. My grandmother was another, both of them still, almost indifferent to him, as if his cry made their grip stronger and as if he were screaming for the three of them. When

he saw me by the door, he suddenly stopped. I stood there, frozen, perhaps scared. There was this tall man in a dark room, this tall man with a body covered with scars of pain, this tall man screaming in his mother and my mother’s arms. He tried to smile, told me to come close, said it was nothing, that the two of them were annoying him. His cries stopped, but there was something even more tragic and violent in this abrupt halt, in the whimpers he hid inside his chest for a few minutes hide his death from those who did not know he held it within him. He did that often, discarded his death, and postponed his body’s resistance as if it were dying independently of him. Did he do it because he never thought death would get him, or was it because he knew he was losing all along? The memory stayed with me though strangely outside of feelings, like an image I carried, a short enced. I could never recall if I had lived that moment, dreamt it or heard it from someone. That was the thing with old memories: they never quite -

We did not keep things in the family. Furniture circulated, and outdated things were thrown out. Keeping was a practice for elsewhere. In one of the old books, before my mother threw them all, I once found a quickly drafted letter in pencil. It was a note that Khaled wrote to her. I do not recall the words, but I remember the writing, quickened and elongated vowels on a ripped page, words written heavily but that still bore a certain speed to them, as if they could be charged, and quickly, as if he needed to say many things but knew he did not have the time to say them. He and my mother had been close ever since she started dating my father. She told me once that she used to steal my father’s new clothes and car keys for Khaled so he could go out. The letter was a thank you note perhaps, the sort you write for people who are always around, discreetly hovering with their softness, the ones you almost surprisingly remember at times and for whom you quickly draft a note. My brother has his name, and when he was younger, I would catch my father looking at him with a

torted, yet they always seem to linger. I kept the scene in my head as my only memory of him and never asked about it, the way none of us children could ever ask about Khaled. No one talked about Khaled’s death. I never knew how he got his cancer or how long it took before he passed away. No one really talked about Khaled. They talked about Mohamed much more, about Mohamed’s sudden death, about Mohamed’s accomplishments. On Khaled, I only got scraps, a few sentences my mother whispered, a few memories Omi muttered to herself at night when she forgot there was someone next to her. During those monologues, she mentioned him in a stream of long tales as his name made its way thing to be reburied as soon as it crawled out of her mouth. When they said his name, it was as ‘Khaled Allah yarah’mou’, ‘Khaled may he rest in peace’—never just ‘Khaled’, always ‘Khaled’ as mourned. Never just ‘Khaled’ but a Khaled always and already dead.

brother in the younger son. Once, at night, my grandmother mentioned their similarities. She talked about my brother’s recklessness, the way he moved so carelessly yet was very aware of everything around him, something that her lost son had, too. My father never talked about it. He never alluded to the similarities between his brother and his son. He never mentioned his dead brother or even his dead brother’s name he gave to his son.

The body was tiny. It had lost its shape after it happened, as if the soul or whatever else that made him alive was so heavy and took so much space that his entire body folded when he died. His body had begun to grow smaller and smaller diminishing even vertically. It was as if the body knew long before they all did that he would soon be gone, as if death began to eat what it was due before its time. II. The wrong body It was a procession of white sheets. Death is clean; it takes the shape of large white cloths wrapped around what is left of the dead: a body. He arrived, collapsed into tears, and fell to his knees as if his grief were too heavy to hold. Yet, just as quickly, he stood up and went into the room to wash his father’s body. The ritual made him stronger; he came out of it less pale. He even yelled at the girls for being in the hall, which had become a male space, a corridor that would lead the body out of the house. He arrived barely standing, but his face’s colour returned after he washed his father, as if he had taken the last gasps of strength from the dead body. There was water everywhere; they took it from the garden through the window and inside the house. The water dripped through every corner. There was water in the room, in the hall. Everyone was barefoot around water. Rugs had to be removed because of water. Living room chairs had their legs in water. Water in every form: packs of ice around the body to keep it cool before my father got here, drops of water from the blasting air conditioner so the body did not rot, and water in bottles circulating through the house but not so much water in tears. What did the water do? Wash the body? Scrub away the grief? Wipe death clean? They had to keep the corpse cool enough. They did not bury him immediately as they should have. They had two sons already gone, one still here and the fourth one away, so they had to wait. You could not bury a father who had buried his own two sons without the sons left alive to put him below the ground properly.

Omi recounted all of his last moments without wavering, her baritone voice always too loud. She told the story of his death as if she were describing a landscape, something neat and beautiful and where every detail had to be brushed. Death could not be hidden or ornate. It had to be re-enacted over and over again, dissected moment by moment until the last. It had to be seen. They made us all go into the room, asking us to take the sheet down to see the dead face, then to pull the sheet farther down to uncover the dead body and stare at it. It was not for the sake of remembering one last time but as if to acknowledge death; we had to see exactly what happened after a soul left a body. It was to remember everyone’s soul eventually escaped and that what was left was only bare

He got sick two years before he died. They never liked to name the disease. Instead, they called it al naswa, the ‘forgetfulness,’ as if it were a poetic current when it actually became collective suffering. He became softer with the naswa, as if the less he remembered, the more he enjoyed every day. He grew affectionate, he who had never shown a single gesture of that sort. He held people’s hands for a long time. He often came and kissed Omi on her cheeks. He always wanted to go outside. He would wait for people to come out of the house or for others to come in, would take their hands softly and gaze at the door without saying a word. They all discovered him anew with the naswa, as if they had another father in front of them, this soft creature who wanted to be held, wanted to walk and was always silent. It unsettled them. They did not like it. They somehow preferred the image of him as withdrawn, quiet, amid his God, books of God, and far from their daily dullness. The naswa made him lose all his habits—how he would exist in his room—and people would visit him there, acting like it was a sanctuary, entering barefoot, wearing long sleeves and talking of things that were not of this world, or how he would pass by the terrace to go pray. And everyone there would quiet down because whatever they were discussing seemed too crude for him to hear.

knew him but mainly with people who did not yet still came, poor women who were there to cry for everyone and rich women who were there to complain. You had to put your dead in the funeral section of the press so people knew you had a death even though no one read the press any longer. Yet, because people before you did it, you had to do it, too. The truth was sometimes it was the only thing you kept from the dead, a press clipping with a date, and a piece of paper to keep when you threw all the others. People did not store things, but you could keep a press clipping in your wallet, in a folder or between the pages of a book. The third day was called al farq, ‘the separation,’ and it was already time to let go of death, even if it was only three days afterward and the corpse might still be warm under the soil. It was the separation, and by 3 PM that day, death was gone. Then they gave you a last celebration, forty days later, the arba’in, ‘the forties.’ It was not to cry for your dead but rather to make sure you had long buried it along with the whimpers and the white sheets. The forties were a gracious courtesy for the fragile ones, days for them to hide in their houses without social obligations until the grief passed. Bodies had to be buried in twenty-four hours. The spectacle of a funeral lasted three days, and your grief ended after forty nights. You did not go often to the cemetery afterward; you did not clear graves or have family visits to see all your

You could be sad, but you could not dwell; you could not make death about yourself or about your relation to the dead. It had to be collective, and it had to mark an end. Our deaths were complete breaks. You stared at the body, a few men washed it, and more men buried it. You had the

dead. Your dead were buried in places that sometimes looked like wastelands, their tombs covered in wild grass, the gravestones broken. Some were buried on top of others, and the graves looked so small you knew all your dead were probably promiscuous beneath the ground. It was not strange, though. They were dead, and all you were told is how much luckier than you they were. You remembered your dead this way, the ones lucky to escape, better where they were than here. III. The orphan card Sarra had her way around death. She had her way around many things. Her orphan card gave her a certain allure, like an added feature to her beauty. Relatives spoke of her paleness, her leg problems and her thin body as if they were an orphan curse, as if all she could be without a father was pretty and fragile. Sarra was smart and knew how to play her stabut it was as if the label was lodged in her genes. She did not show anything. Her greenish eyes remained inexpressive whatever the occasion, death, birth, heartbreak, school grades and all of it. Her voice did the work even better. She had the baritone tones from our side of the family, her fa-

raspy song, out of tune yet endearing. None of neatly in the family soundscape, yet it seemed

tions. She spoke as if every word coming out of her throat, into her mouth, and out into the world meant the same exact thing as the word before and all the words after. Even her laugh did not go into higher octaves; it remained on the ground, lacking expressiveness like her face. Sarra was in Tunis when the funeral happened. She had already lost a father and then another grandfather years ago, so this seemed routine. She made a point to educate all the other non-orphan cousins on the steps of the process. She especially enjoyed the francophone cousins, the ones who thought you had to wear black at funerals. ‘Just do not show skin and do not wear any makeup .’ She showed up on the day of the burial in with massive dark circles under her eyes, ones she had ever since anyone could remember and which made her look even more like a sleepless girl who had lost her father. She walked through the rooms quick tour of the male section in the garden, wearing her cold face, her bored green eyes barely gazing at the surroundings and her orphan grace on her shoulders. ‘I don’t really remember my father’s funeral.’ Her voice did not betray a single feeling, but she said it with a corner smile, a grin that almost seemed disappointed with how new deaths cannot bring older ones to life.

IV. After the facts ‘I don’t cry. I stopped crying after the second one. I shed all the tears possible then. They’re not unlimited, you know. I cried for every death in the family, the ones that passed, the ones that have yet to come and even the ones I won’t see when I will be dead myself.’ Once you experience one death after another, once someone leaves you, you become scared all the time. No one ever told Omi about accidents, about sickness, about anything. They all whispered news between themselves, on the phone, at the doors of houses. All six of them worried and mumbled their worries—never in full sentences, always amid two conversations. The early deaths, of the two brothers, eight months apart, had rendered them always on the verge of breakdowns, as if they knew how small the steps between sanity and madness were, between joy and despair, as if they had experienced their own collapsing during the death year and knew that they could slip back. All six of them in their own lives had to wear faces, hold their children close, and smile. They disregarded with elusive nods the old acquaintances who wanted to bring back the memories of the two uncles. They pretended to exist as six siblings without erasing their memories as eight. The faces cracked at times. My brother with the same name locked himself in a room at two years old, and my father started screaming, tried to break the door with his shoulders, and he gasped for air as if he were the child locked in, as if he was about to lose someone else across the closed door.

They all coped differently. My father resorted to religious tropes and being always right. He hated movement. He hated when hands moved too much and for too long, when hands swayed to grab things, or the moving hands of people talking too fast. He said it gave him motion sickness and made him dizzy, but mostly, it made him angry. He hated how my brother moved from one plan to something and how he always wanted to live in an unstable present full of motions, noises and people. He hated the recklessness of his nieces, and he hated the apathy of his older sister, born the same day as his drifting son, like yet another fam-

without the dead name, lecture the much older father of his nieces and go through uninterrupted monologues that became lengthier and lengthier with age. The youngest of the four sisters coped by distance. She assumed a certain carelessness, a nonchalance towards everything. She did not have many rules or many ambitions. She enjoyed boredom as a state of being as if there was not much else to dig within herself, not much else to gain from life. She was cynical of the things she did, yet she kept doing them. She existed two steps back from herself, alternating the decor around her as if to avoid settling and keep the existential ques-

tions away. She mentioned once how she had panic attacks very often and no one really knew about it. She kept her panic afar, too. She dealt with it by shutting herself in a room when it happened, and she never confronted it. She was nonchalant about everything but mostly about herself. The older one resorted to performance. She overdid joy when she was joyful, and, most important, she overdid sadness when she felt something remotely close to sadness. She liked staging, and the older she grew, the more complex the stages became, multimedia performances during which she would send crying videos of herself to the family social media group with messages on how sick she was, how angry at her daughters she was, how depressed because of her husband she was and how desperate even the air she was breathing she would get into with everyone around her or by her periods of insane euphoria. She coped by being a theatre-play character, dramatic but terribly funny, inventing words and concepts and sudden excursions followed by long disappearances. She claimed to dislike her peers, her sisters and brothers who bored her. She became the children’s favourite, a clownish character who randomly took them to places, and someone they could never understand or rely on, who brought them to her house and then would disappear on them. The children liked her unpredictable mood, her mimicking of the other adults and her lack of rules.

The sister that came after her coped by fixing everything. She wanted utter perfection, complete seamlessness. She liked order, and for her, there was never enough order, as if even order itself had to be reorganized. Everything around her was neat, her blond hair always perfectly blowdried, her career full of raises and promotions, and her impeccably matched husband. She was the one with the most ordered life, yet she once had the messiest one. There were closed-door beat her, tried to drown her in a bathtub, burned her car, and fought with one of the dead brothers. She talked the least and only talked back to order everyone. The third sister kept changing herself from within: once religious, once political activist, once withdrawn, once mad, once sad, once sociable, once in Tunis and once back in Paris and back again. Nothing happened to her existence; she was alone for so long and in Paris for even longer, but so much kept changing from within her, as if she were trying on all the faces she had until her insides seemed gradually to lose all shape. And she forgot who she was the previous time, as if she kept abandoning scraps of what she could have been

or wanted to be along the way. She became more frenetic, more erratic, and harder to follow. She mentioned the deaths a bit more than the others but as if she were talking about her own rotting parts. No one ever knew whose death she was hovering around, the memories of older ones or her own collapse. She kept losing herself and enacting new selves, and because no one ever asked whether she was mad or just playing everyone too well, she kept altering herself until she died, too. The other brother left, the youngest of them all, coped by bottling everything in. He kept emotions and words inside him. He was perhaps the one who coped the best because he was broken long before the deaths. Many years ago, he had been wrongly accused of killing someone, and he saw his ambitions and entire life crumble before him. When he was barely leaving childhood, at seventeen years old, he went to prison for having pushed a neighbour’s child, whose parents blamed him for irreversible brain damage. It was yet another family tale that was buried so deep I only heard about it once. Perhaps that is why he had already tasted grief. He had grieved his own life as he struggled between jobs—butcher, realtor and car seller—struggled with love, and married once, twice, three times. For him, death was just another failed endeavour at recovering one’s life. They never talked about their grief amongst themselves or with other people. It was as if all of them were having silent conversations together, as if they had alternate spaces where they dwelled, took off their masks and cried in unison.

The anxiety of loss was transmitted through blood. It ran through my generation’s blood like it was something you carried with a last name, including the uncertainty of life and the overwhelm-

how to bury your sense of loss. We acted in the world the way we did in funerals, avoiding individual feelings and making it about something larger and far away. We did not perform; we did not pretend. Rather, we strove unceremoniously around our existence. We acted in the world a few steps back from ourselves, never fully at ease with our rage. We passed through the world like it was a series of forced rituals and brought our composite face to it. We knew that fear was there. It made its way back at times, inside our homes on the day of a funeral, when a child locked himself in a room, in teenage rebellions and in the uncertainties of adulthood decisions. Fear found us again and again, and when it did, everything became absurd and senseless. During the times of fear, we waited for it to pass as if it were carved in our skins and we could never cleanse it away. So, we followed our grandmother and our parents and taught ourselves to keep it all afar: feelings, decisions, the past and the names of the dead. We knew the taste and smell of fear like it was engraved in the wrinkled face of Omi, inside her eyes that stopped tearing. Omi held fear in the way she kept her eyes dry. It was lodged in her gaze; it coursed through her body, through the sounds of her words when she was up at night, and in the coarse tones we inherited. Fear passed through the silences that kept her out of worry. It moved inside her massive body, which grew smaller and smaller with the years as if it were getting ready to lodge its own death. Fear lingered inside her, but never again did it become whimpers.

Fatima Alharthi is a Saudi writer and the editor-in-chief of Sard Adabi. She writes f iction and nonfiction. Her work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Flyleaf Journal, Santa Clara Review and Tahoma Literary Review, among others.

Pear I have a pear body. It has not always been pearshaped, but I recently began to enjoy food. Ahmed says it’s normal to eat for two, but Google says the opposite. We mythicize the abnormal to apologise for our whims, and, in fact, what we women like about good partners is that they tell us what we want to hear only to contradict it. I like to think of my body in terms of vegetables and fruit. In middle school, I was a sugar cane, anaemic, with a visible sternum, and the nutritionist supplied me with vitamins and the nasty chocolate powder to stir into my milk, making me gain twenty pounds. My bones were slightly covered with more fat. Still, my bust size remained the same. ‘Are you done yet?’ Ahmed tries to open the door, assuming the halt of the shower signals an end to my restroom time. I am looking for the measuring tape. I shove the kohl eyeliner, sponge, brush, the bag of Plackers Flossers and the empty glass jar of face lotion I intended to reuse for some facial mask, like rose wafrigerator, and apply it to my face every other day before washing it off, but it sat there for months, the lid lost and remnants of the lotion stuck on the container’s wall. I open the second drawer—contact lenses—the third—hairdryer, hair curler and straightener. The fourth has iron wax that I only used once. Ahmed knocks again. ‘Not yet. Wait for a few minutes.’ ‘LabCorp. It might get crowded.’ ‘It’s always crowded.’ He opens the door with a penny, undresses and gets inside the shower. I haven’t measured my waist or my thighs yet, but just from looking side-

ways in the mirror, some lumps can be ladled into my hands, some extra, extra fat that put me into the body of any of my sisters, but never me. Ahmed hums in the shower. His slightly enlarged paunch doesn’t seem to bother him, or if it does, he never talks about it. I stand on the scale. 134.08, it reads. I lost two pounds. Great, I just want to see the exclamation on the nurse’s face in the next GYN appointment saying, ‘You lost weight’, or ‘You look good’, or ‘How do you manage not to gain weight? That’s impressive!’ and then I’ll go nonstop talking about my zero-carb diet, my yoga, daily walk, the gallon of water I drink and the sixty squats in the shower. Except that this time, none of these is true. Ahmed’s hums stop, and so does the water. ‘Are you okay?’ Ahmed asks as he dries himself vigorously with the towel. I’ll remember to let him teach our child the art of drying so I won’t have a kid coming from the toilet dripping water. Other than his slightly tanned face, neck, arms and legs, the rest is white, maximising our chances of having a white kid. He

calls me his brown sugar, and looking at him now, I realise that I never came up with a nickname that tells of me loving his white skin. He can be my marshmallow, but a marshmallow needs to be plump, and Ahmed is not plump, not structurally, I mean. He shakes his deodorant, applying two squirts under each pit. Ahmed starts putting his clothes on. Perhaps washing his hair every day shower. His bright face exudes cleanliness, and his would never set a towel in my hair, as curly as it is, only the wide-toothed comb, styling cream and straightener. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Seriously, who upset you?’ Personalising the question elated me, making me feel like a partner worthy of pampering. ‘Be empathetic, okay?’ ‘Okay.’ ‘I’m just depressed with my body shape. This is not me. I look at my thighs, and I can’t look at them again. So bulky, so not like me.’

‘Ummm.’ His Ummm is a leap in marital understanding. The old Ahmed would put on the hat of a consultant, telling me what to do and whatnot, that depresstress or disappointment. And aren’t I the one who always says we are what we think about? He is usually right about me blaming the wrong thing, like the piles of laundry, or fear of intimidation in grad school because of my bump or North Florida’s incessant rain that halts my daily walk. ‘How does it feel, the bump, I mean?’ ‘It is not the bump but the bump’s environs. It is this that feels like discomfort.’ I tap my thighs and batter them, emitting an unintentional and loud sound like a clap. Two claps in clear tenor sound more like Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ than my rampage. ‘“Discomfort” is not a concrete word.’ ‘Exactly, and that’s why I’m upset. This is not my body; this is not me.’ Ahmed edges closer and opens his arms. He is only in his underwear. In his embrace, I sense home, the lounging on my parents’ cosy sofa, and the dipping of my bare feet in Arabia’s sands. ‘I love you the way you are, and after the baby arrives, we can start a diet or go and work out together.’ ‘Why not before the baby arrives?’ He cocks his head. ‘Why not?’ Truth is for non-pressing matters; Ahmed is an excellent person to talk to but not for commitsince he wasn’t part of my history when I weighed eighty pounds. Mother insisted on my wedding dress being a size larger.

‘You are like your sisters. They all gained weight before the wedding,’ she said. ‘I’m different. I know my body,’ I replied. And I was correct. The wedding dress arrived, too by the town’s French-educated tailor. To this day, even if the alteration is not visible, I look down at the imperfection of my wedding dress, the hidden delicate needle stitches in the lace gown, the Ellie see it stopping before my enlarged hips. Things could’ve been easier if I were in my third trimester, waddling and counting the days to delivery. I am still in the 16th week. Google says you should gain about two to four nant and one pound a week during the rest of your pregnancy. trimester. The culprit is pastries, especially lahmacun and homemade cheese croissants, Instagram recipes, and the brioche bread. What annoys me about the Instagrammers I follow is their comfort in their rounded bodies. Other than the single picture one of them posted of her green smoothie, there haven’t been any hacks about body well-being, calculation of calories, gluten-free recipes, or suggested exercises, as if the enjoyment of food collides with leading a healthy lifestyle. Their Ap-

ple Watches never showed full circles; they only acted as an auxiliary wrist item in their videos and photos. But they made me enjoy food for the sake of enjoyment, not as a mere necessity to eat but actually to relish in what I am eating, and that’s something I’m grateful for. This morning, I made scones at six. When they were fresh from the oven, I cut one in half, spread a side with raspberry jam and the other with cream, calling for Ahmed to join me. When he didn’t show up, I sent him a picture, and he came scurrying. If only we could invite each other to walk after the break of dawn and not slither under the comforter or hide behind the phone screen,

At 11 AM, starvation pinched me, and a plate of two sunny-side up eggs and avocado grilled toast served as my brunch. ‘I can’t eat,’ Ahmed said. ‘I don’t work out like you do.’ Still, when he couldn’t resist the portioned plate waiting for him, the green avocado mixed with cilantro and his eggs, over-medium, with three slices of grilled Halloumi cheese, he pulled up his chair and sat, saying, ‘Actually, I want to eat.’ Pear is not the right fruit to describe my body. Neither is eggplant, corn, nor celery. I have the same discomfort when opening the delivered grocery chini with a mini zucchini attached, a celery stalk too wide for a stem and a crooked cucumber full of pimples. But thinking about pears makes me exaggerate my weight and act upon it. I no longer walk with the break of dawn. I walk when I feel my hips are too heavy to sit on, my legs idle and my brain needing disconnection from the roaring washing machine, the cat’s snores and Ahmed’s phone calls. LabCorp has a sign that specifies a maximum capacity of twelve people. The door is closed. I knock on it. Not receiving an answer, I go inside. to the self-check-in counter, scanning my driver’s

license and my health insurance and picking the chair farthest from the amalgam of attendants and closest to the door. If I am a pear, there is a potato over there, an apple two seats ahead and a melon walking in with her cucumber son. The potato, apple, melon and I are all females—the evidence of absorption, of taking in travail without necessarily letting it out, or if we do, it comes verbally or in bursts of sweat or laughter. Ahmed is not with me. He is playing some card game on his phone in the car, and I didn’t insist. A man’s cave, that’s how I see his solitary sitting in the car, and though I mind him waiting under Florida’s sun, he has parked the car under an oak tree for shade. Too much breath is inimical, and though all of the attendants are masked, why should he be in a room of people waiting for their blood to be drawn, or what would he do in a stall where they would wrap blue latex

‘Do you have a driver’s license?’

one tube after another with blood? I see him either fainting at the sight of the needle or scolding them for drawing too much blood.

body. I don’t like to think of people in terms of colour. Fruit and vegetables sound more fun. Yet, with the girl’s departure, something sunk in me, like a deep hole opening a gash in my intestines, making me think that this whole body shape thing is nonsense and that we are either valued or unvalued humans measured by the kind of insurance we hold, the hair we wear, the Tesla or lack of Tesla we drive, and the threadbare shirt or ironed blouse we don. As the door opens and a nurse calls my name, pronouncing it incorrectly, I rise thinking of my lunch plate: blackened chicken with a few stalks of roasted asparagus and a can of Coke emptied into a glass full of ice.

A girl in her twenties walks to the vacant check-in to one of the three self-check-in counters, but I stay intact. My eyes are on The New Yorker, reading Camille Borades’s story. America has taught me not to show visual prowess, that the supreme task of being an individual is to fend for yourself in non-life-threatening situations. She is a stalk of celery, lean, with bushy hair purposely fanned out in the heat of Florida’s July. A woman appears at the counter, pumpkin-shaped. Obesity is everywhere this afternoon. I try not to focus on any of the two, the kinky-haired but lean girl or the fat woman. Pregnant women subconsciously hunt semblances from their surroundings, and while I don’t mind the dark skin, I do the hair. Dry curly hair runs in the family. Mom managed to straighten hers twice a week, but Basim, my brother, used cheap hair products that made his hair worse than the bristles of a horse’s brush.

The lady roars, and the girl shakes her head, perhaps saying no. ‘Health insurance?’ She shakes her head again. Her voice is inaudible. ‘Sorry, we can’t take you.’ Lifting my eyes from the opened pages of the magazine, I wished for an exchange of voices, a whisper for a whisper and a subdued voice for a subdued voice. The girl huffs, leaving the hall Over the counter, the woman sits, fanning her wig with a COVID-19 brochure. Her borrowed eyelash-

The check-in woman points at one of the selfin her information, hits the next button and then stops. She walks back to the lady, saying something I can’t hear.

Sharon Aruparayil is a senior psychology student at the American University of Sharjah. She is 21 years old and is originally from India but has spent most of her life in the Middle East. She currently resides in the United Arab Emirates and is a researcher in the social sciences. She is interested in harnessing social theories and methodology to inform public policy, specifically through the study of social norms, stereotypes and behaviour in South Asian immigrant communities across the world. She hopes to pursue this interest in graduate school. 90

Shoeboxes in the Sky

‘Do you know how to cook?’ It was straight out of a Bollywood movie. The next questions were probably designed to determine how homely she was—if she was the ideal balance between being college educated with a progressive mind set and traditional enough to be content as a housewife for their son for the rest of her life. ‘Oh yes, she’s a wonderful cook! Please try some of these samosas, or even the mithai (sweets). Her chai is the best in the neighbourhood; trust me…’ She was supposed to act coy and not speak, even when she was spoken to. She was supposed to avert her gaze, look up and smile shyly at the correct intervals, while her mother preened and giggled in order to show off how cultured her daughter was. She was supposed to stay quiet and let the adults talk to each other.

Marriages were between families and not individuals, after all. She was told about the rishta this morning, with dread coursing through her veins as her sisters fawned over the picture of a seemingly mediocre guy. She did not want to look at it. She did not want to look at him. She sat down at the cluttered dressing table, rummaging through the drawers for her trusty kohl pencil. As she lined her almond-shaped eyes with kohl, she felt bile rise in her throat and coat the inside of her mouth at the thought of this ‘arrangement.’ She considered whether this was it —the end of her life as she knew it— and if everything she had ever accomplished, including her countless dreams nothing; if marriage would be the only thing her

life would amount to – a bleak story that would be told in hushed whispers and subdued voices. She would stop being a person, her identity morphing and trapping her within an invisible prison, existing only to serve her husband and eventual children. She wanted to travel. She wanted to write books about her travels, the simple people in quaint villages tucked away in the back alleys of modern society, and the stories that were hidden in the bustling, vibrant streets of Dubai. She wanted to build her own home, an apartment overlooking her favourite city, settling in for the evening with a good book in front of a

Most of all, she wanted to be happy—truly, completely happy; happiness that felt like the radiance of a thousand suns was contained within her being, sunshine threatening to escape through her eyelids. This kind of happiness would light up any room she would walk into, contagious and effervescent. It would be the kind of happiness that belonged to her, and her only. It was too late, now. In her little world, chai was considered an emotion: the warm earthy tones summoned at every celebration, both weighty and mundane, and rainy afternoons deemed incomplete without a cup of chai and a plate of pakoras (spiced fritters, usually made with onions or potatoes).

She was the only one who could make chai like her grandma, consisting of a magical ratio of peppercorns, cardamom, tea leaves and mint that would transport you back to the dusty streets of Kolkata. You could close your eyes and almost hear the musical invitations of a weathered old man, beckoning you to drink chai in little terracotta cups. She would start by boiling the water in the designated tea pan, watching as the small bubbles fought with each other on their way to the surface. She tried to tune out her parents’ argument about the appropriate number of samosas they would search of the ancient mortar and pestle. It was older than she was, and it was one of the few things her mother brought with her when they migrated to Dubai in the late 1980s. They came here with nothing but the clothes off their backs, some cash and three prized possessions. dabba, a round stainless-steel box with little compartments for spices (turmeric, chilli, peppercorns, cumin, mustard and coriander seeds). This box was the cornerstone of her fondest childhood memories, hiding behind her mother when the mustard seeds popped furiously in hot oil.

ories of millions of meals, and the soft ringing laughter after a satisfying meal were made possible only after roasted spices were ground into powdered magic. The third was a simple pressure cooker, as no meal would ever be considered complete without some daal (lentil soup) and rice, or khichdi, where you tossed both daal and rice together to heal a sick soul. It had multiple uses—a saviour of sort—when it came to baking last minute cakes or quick meals when guests showed up unannounced.

It was like magic to her; her mother could make the most delicious combinations with the humblest of ingredients. A simple boiled potato would be and thrown into a hot pan, where it would come bright yellow turmeric and spiced with chilli and peppercorns as the earthiness of the coriander danced on your tongue. She desperately wanted to know how to create magic like her, but the key was hidden until they were of age. ‘The key to good food, beta...’ her mother would whisper the rest in her ears on a rainy afternoon, much to the chagrin of her younger sisters who as well. The secret was grinding the spices fresh and blooming them in hot oil. It was this technique passed down generations that would make blend together in the most beautiful way, no matter how humble the ingredient was. The second was the mortar and pestle, made with tarnished iron with her mother’s initials carved on the bottom, next to a line of other women. It was an heirloom of sorts, passed down on wedding days as the bride would go to her husband’s house. A small piece of home that held the mem-

dabba, pluck a few sprigs of mint from the nearby plant, and add them to the mortar. The tea leaves would go into the boiling water, blooming into a beautiful amber as she ground the spices. As the earthy smell wafted through the entire house, she would add the spices, watching closely until it was time to add the milk. As she added the milk, she wondered if she would ferent household, with a new mortar and pestle, a new dabba and a whole new family. The soft hissing of chai kissing the edges of the pan as it boiled over drew her back to reality, and she carefully took the pan off the stove and poured the chai into small ceramic cups. She knew this was coming.

The hurt would cause them to grow a shell, and they began to indulge in the community less and less and cling to the traditions from back home even harder. They might have moved all the way to Dubai, but her parents held on to their culture and their strong ideals. She was allowed to have an education and even go to college, but that was it. The next step in the process was marriage to a groom they would choose for her. She was not allowed to travel before that, as living her dreams was a wish only her future husband could grant.

Her parents came to this country with nothing but

They arrived with the unwavering belief that they would be completely happy resorting themselves to a life of loneliness, set apart from everything they considered home, including their family, if it meant that their children had a shot at a bright future. They would make countless sacrifices, keep their heads down and tolerate abuse, and live in cramped apartments in skyscrapers as they sent money back home to build mansions , which would be left unoccupied for decades—a luxury they might never be able to experience.

They would meet other expats living in the same reality and unite over their lived experience, as well as through food. They would begin to celebrate all festivals, their neighbours bringing fragrant biryani on Eid, or platters of spiced cakes, cookies and gifts on Christmas. They would create new traditions, such as hosting barbecues in the desert and watching the night sky explode into thousands of stars. However, these were temporary people with temporary relationships. The sting that came with change became an almost constant part of their lives, as friends would move away as quickly as they came into their lives.

She was only twenty, and she thought she had a few more years left. She wasn’t even asked if she wanted to get married. The dreams she told them about, as she excitedly explained her vision board, seemed like a distant memory. She had no choice but to agree. What else could she do? She was only twenty. The groom’s mother lunged for the samosas alpastry tightly. She made a joke about the crumbs falling on the ground, as the smell of the spicy

being used to buffer the spice, she stole a quick glance at him. He seemed nice, dressed in a light blue shirt with slacks and matching socks tucked into sensible shoes. It was almost comical watching such a tall man squeeze himself into the armchair, trying to position himself so he was not resting his face on his knees. He sported a well-kept beard, with soft curly hair to match. He was quite good-looking, but he, like her, had not spoken a word yet. The conversations seemed to blur in the background as she kept her eyes trained on the small crack in the tile under her shoes.

Zainab Mirza is a 34-year-old Indian writer based in Kuwait. She has a master’s in marketing and has accumulated a range of experiences working in start-ups, events, social media and digital marketing. She currently works at a nonprofit developing growth opportunities and transformational education programs for Kuwait’s youth. She has also been a trainer for writing camps and workshops for children and adults in Kuwait. She is the co-founder of The Divan.

The Drive Home rings of the Audi logo on the steering wheel. This was the worst part of a driver’s job; he never knew how long he would have to sit with his thoughts. The empty lamp-lit street stretched out in front of him, adorned with large villas on either side: some simple with paved yards instead of gardens and some rebuilt too late to even call anyone back home, and Um Khalid had not told him what time she would return from visiting her father. His mind drifted back to what had been keeping him up—how he was going to tell Um Khalid he wanted to move back to India at the end of the year for good. He was sure she would try to convince him otherwise; he had been with the family for thirty years after all, and her yesterday that he wanted to ask her something, but she had been too preoccupied and had not replied. He hoped she would be in a good mood this time. Go next year, he heard her say, her voice reverberating in his head. What’s another year?

would they want to keep him here anyway? Maybe he should say so. But no, it sounded rude… ‘I cannot, Madam,’ he said out loud to himself, with as

car to stretch his legs and started to walk down the pavement to work up his courage, and then he breathed in wisps of a distant yet familiar fragrance. He looked around and located the night blooming jasmine and its white blooms hanging over a wall, exuding the fragrance from the home that only creatures of the night were privy to. The blooms took him back two decades earlier to his days after their wedding. He had already been working in the Gulf when their marriage was arranged by his family. The newlyweds had sat under a similar jasmine tree in the public garden. She had told him how much she loved their smell; how raat ki rani was such a perfect the night. Before returning to Kuwait the next day, he had cut a few stems and given them to her to grow at home, hoping they would remind her of him. They had never grown.

What would it be like going home after all these years He visited home for a couple of months every other year, but it was never enough. He missed seeing his parents, eating the gajar ka halwa his daughter Sumbul said she made ‘especially for Abbu,’ and walking in the reated so many memories of his children growing up that Tabassum recounted over the years, and he could no longer tell which ones were real—had he really seen sum mentioned it when he’d saved up enough to phone home? Or had he imagined that time he had played football with Shoaib and kicked the ball into a nimtree? He was sure Shoaib had just turned seven, but he also had not visited home that year. He had been wanting to return for years now, but something always got in the way, including his daughters’ engineering degree, which he had almost completed.

had cancer. No matter how much he earned and for how long, it never seemed enough. When one problem was solved, the next was never too far away. Insha’Allah, they were all behind him now; Abba was receiving treatment and was doing better. Shoaib also needed to be settled, but there was time for that. Anyway, it was much easier to marry a son off than a daughter, and he had gotten two married. He imagined himself back in the life he had left behind, lying on a coir cot under the open sky, his grandchildren playing around him...

What if she said no? No, she wouldn’t. He was sure of it. He sometimes heard horror stories from other drivers about servants beaten and locked up, their passports al-humdulillah to himself every time these stories were recounted to him; his family was nothing like that. Um Khalid, her husband and son, Khalid, were always polite to him. He had watched Khalid grow up—even taught him how to drive on the boy’s insistence, picturing himself instructing his own son. Even Um Khalid’s old man was all right when he was not yelling and had helped him when Farouk had had the courage to ask. He got a day off every week, and was he not able to visit home every other year? He wondered what was taking Um Khalid so long. He dropped the family here at her father’s house twice a week for their gatherings. One of the house drivers usually let him in through the side entrance, and they argued about Indian politics over a strong cup of doodh ki chai. But he was probably asleep.

the gate. He hurried out of the car and held open the passenger door on the other side, closing it as soon as Um Khalid had pulled in the black abaya trailing behind her. As he was strapping on his seatbelt, he heard a snifface in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were moist. ‘Kullo zain, Madam?’ he asked in broken Arabic. Everything okay, Madam? ‘Drive home please, Farouk,’ she said in Arabic, wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue.

Um Khalid said nothing, weeping into her shrinking tissue. Farouk picked up the box of Kleenex from the dashboard and placed it on the centre console. He heard Um Khalid reach for it and pull out several tissues. ‘Insha’Allah Allah make his health good, Madam. Baba shu’oon and give me job with your family.’ Her sobs lessened; he knew she was listening. ‘Madam, you know, I come Kuwait 1989 with agency. KD salary. They tell me lie, Madam. I come here, they put me to drive tractor for one year. If Baba Harkash no give me job that day, I still drive tractor for 50 KD…then no money for anything for my family…now al-humdulillah, my daughters married, my son study, everything good. Insha’Allah Allah give him good health.’ He stole another glance at the mirror; Um Khalid had managed a smile.

‘Okay, Madam.’ He started the car and drove onto the street in silence.

did not ask any more questions, and they sat in silence as he turned onto the highway. ‘Farouk, do you remember when Baba took us all to Entertainment City when the children were small?’ she asked, lifting her head to look at Farouk. ‘Of course, Madam. Mary vomit on Khalid after going on roller coaster,’ he said smiling, hoping it would lighten her mood. Her tears disappeared into her wrinkles as she snorted with laughter at the memory. ‘All because of Khalid

it since.’ She had aged considerably over the years. ‘My Baba is dying, Farouk,’ she said, breaking into a sob. Farouk felt his chest tighten. ‘How, Madam? What happen?’ It must have been sudden. How could he not have heard of it through the servants otherwise?

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‘Insha’Allah. Baba always said you were the best driver he ever had. We are lucky to have you, Farouk.’ He felt the need to go on and to reassure the woman he had worked for throughout the decades that her father would be remembered. ‘Madam, you know, when I Harkash. But when I work, Madam, I see Baba Harkash heart very good. Last year, I need little extra money for my father treatment, Baba Harkash give full money for it. Always he ask me how my family. I respect Baba Harkash too much.’

‘I hope everyone thinks about him the way you do, Farouk.’ They arrived at Um Khalid’s home. ‘Farouk, go get some sleep now. When you wake up, please bring Sir’s dishdasha from the laundry.’ ‘Okay, Madam.’ She opened the door and was about to step out when she paused and turned her head to the rear-view mirror, her eyes narrowing the way they always did when she remembered something. ‘What did you want to ask me yesterday, Farouk?' She had heard him then. His attention snapped for a ing the wallpaper photo of him and his family into focus.

Um Khalid sat still for a few moments, her face stiffening. ‘I'm sorry, Farouk. It’s just a bad time right now. We need you here. We’ll talk about it next year, insha’Allah.’ With that she left, shutting the door behind her with more force than usual. Farouk’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, his knuckles lightening with the force of his grip.

his arms, and she was staring at him the way babies did when they were fazed. He turned the phone face down on the passenger seat.

They needed him? What about his family? His real family? How many more years until they let him go?

‘Nothing, Madam. Nothing important. I go later bring dry cleaning.’

be arrested for absconding and sent back to the family. They would not treat him the same way then, and they would never let him go—after all the years of his life he had given them! Waves of anger coursed through his body. No one could help him. He would be stuck here

Um Khalid pulled the door close without shutting it. ‘I'm listening, Farouk. What is it?’ Farouk gripped the steering wheel and looked at the gear box. ‘Madam, I want ask you if...If I can go back to my family.’ ‘On vacation? But you just got back a few months ago.’

rear-view mirror. ‘Forever.’ Um Khalid took a sharp breath, looking straight into his eyes in the rear-view mirror. ‘See Madam, I work here long time. My children become big, now they have children. I no see them grow–’ ‘I understand, Farouk. But how can you ask me this now after I just told you my father is dying?’ ‘Yes, and I am sorry, Madam. You tell me to say. But my father also dying. He still have cancer.’ Taking a deep breath, he added, ‘I see your father more than mine.’

Sumbul as a toddler playing with her doll and Meher making faces at Shoaib when he was a baby, making him giggle uproariously. All three of his children growing up without him, him growing old without them. He drove on, unable to see the road through his tears. *** Um Khalid paced through the hall, raging. After everything they had done for him, Farouk had betrayed them! She was going to have him arrested. Even after she had told him Yubba was dying, he had the audacity to run away! Her son Khalid walked in. ‘What’s wrong, Yumma?’ ‘Khalid, Farouk has run away. The servants haven’t seen him since last night. It’s maghrib now; he’s been missing for a whole day, and he took the car with him!’ She sat down on the couch with a huff.

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Khalid’s eyes widened, unable to believe his ears.

‘La hawla wa la quwata illa billa!’ screeched Um Khalid,

‘Farouk? Our Farouk? Run away?’ ‘Come on, Yumma.

heart. ‘What happened to him? Where is he?’

Why would he do that?’

‘I got a call from Mubarak Hospital. Farouk was in an accident close by and was brought in this morning. Someone rammed into the car on the Fourth Ring Road. He’s been hurt. Shall we go see him?’

‘Because he wants to go back to India!’ ‘Didn’t he go just last year?’ ‘Exactly! Now he wants to move back, even after I told him your grandfather’s on his deathbed!’ She rested her forehead on her hand, her grief returning for a moment, only to be swept aside again by the rush of anger at being disobeyed so brazenly by her own driver. ‘That doesn’t sound like Farouk.’ ‘You’d be surprised at how these people will turn at the

‘He’s been with us for thirty years, Yumma,’ her son replied gently. ‘He’s had plenty of opportunities to turn. What did he say, then?’ ‘He said his own father was dying.’ She threw her hands up in the air. ‘Is that my fault?’ Khalid stared at his mother, grasping at the last dregs of his patience. ‘Yumma, why should Yaddi’s life be more important to him than his own father’s?’ ered her composure. ‘Why are you asking stupid questions? It’s not about whose life is more important. It’s about him abandoning us when we need him. Haven’t we been there for him whenever he needed us?’ ‘We can always get another driver, Yumma. You’re too dependent on Farouk anyway.’ Before Um Khalid could give her son a piece of her mind, Khalid’s phone rang, and he left the room. What was wrong with her son? If Farouk could betray them after working for them for three decades, how could they ever trust another driver? These people were all the same. She opened a friends’ WhatsApp group to vent, but Khalid hurried back into the living room before she could send the message. ‘Yumma! Farouk is in the hospital!’

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‘Of course! Ya Rab, I hope it’s not serious.’ She picked up her Chanel purse, murmuring verses from The Quran. Her son shook his head at her back, following her out. *** Um Khalid stared down at Farouk in shock. His face was swollen and cut, his head bandaged on the side after being operated on and his left leg in a cast. Her eyes took in a birthmark—a speck-sized black blob on his nose. Had that always been there? She realised at that moment that she had never really looked at him. But why would she have? ‘Madam, I am sorry about the car,’ whispered Farouk, avoiding her gaze, his cuts searing from the heat rising to his face. ‘It was accident…I get dry cleaning for Sir, and when I go to four number road, one car stop in front of me, so I press brake and then—’ he was cut off by a nurse drawing back the curtain to check his vitals.

‘We’re thankful you’re okay, Farouk. Al-humdulillah,’ said Um Khalid looking at the off-white tiles, twisting

‘I never doubted you,’ she added, not sure why she felt compelled to say so. His face was so swollen. Haraam. What would his wife say when she saw him? And his poor children? Misakeen. Her toes curled within her shoes as she recalled the accusations she had made—the things she had thought Farouk capable of just a little while ago. Astag. She hoped Allah would forgive her. The silence between them yawned on, with the only sounds in the room being the whispers of relatives surrounding other bed-ridden patients and the clanging of trays as dinner was wheeled in. Khalid came in after speaking to the doctor, giving Farouk a warm smile and reassuring him the doctor said he would be able to return home soon. Farouk nodded, his smile drooping at the mention of home. Khalid whispered to his mother that they needed to visit his grandfather as well. ‘May Allah give you good health,’ said Um Khalid, turning to leave. Farouk thanked her for coming. She paused at the curtain around his bed, then spoke as though with an afterthought. ‘And, Farouk?’ ‘Yes, Madam?’ ‘You can return to your family once you have recovered.’ ‘Forever, Madam?’ ‘Forever.’ Farouk turned his head so she wouldn’t see him smile.

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Growing up, Sabti felt like she was living in two worlds as a Filipina and Kuwaiti; her self-awareness made her overprotective, and as a kid, she didn’t relate much to others. Gradually, she stopped making new friends and started looking for what she really wanted to do – reading and writing. She is now working as a developer in the IT sector but continues to find herself among words – her first solace, her only reprieve from the demands of two opposing cultures.

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105

A Relationship with my Dad

A relationship with my dad is him asking me to make tea, and the tea is whilst I pretended I was in control. I was not. I panicked. A relationship with my dad is baking four boiled eggs for him. He asked if it’s enough for all of us. I didn’t plan ahead because the rest were eating last night’s dinner. KFC.

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A relationship with my dad is repeating our argument every single day. ‘Did you bring the keys with you?’ But you’re dropping me to work. ‘Why did you wake up so late?’ Because I hate my job. A relationship with my dad is refusing my help to drive in the midst of silent signs of a heart attack, watching him and trying to keep the conversation going. ‘The nearest hospital, here this way.’ ‘No, we can make it home.’ ‘But you’re in pain it’s—’ ‘We’re near, this pain…usually…goes away…in few minutes…it’ll go.’ It didn’t. And I did not wish his death that day.

A relationship with my dad is me translating for him from English to Arabic, Tagalog to Arabic, or sometimes between all three of them at the same time, and most of the time I don’t need to. Nurse: ‘Is he your father?’ Me: ‘Yes.’ Nurse: ‘Talaga! Mama mo sya no, panganay ka?’ Me: ‘Yes, I’m half. Kung pwede po—’ Irritated, my dad asks what she’s saying. I tell him that they want mom’s Civil ID for the medical report. ‘La Endihom Kel Shay, lysh na’tihum?’ And I try to compromise. A relationship with my dad is him getting to know me better during car trips, is also me relying on him not to crash the car, even when I’m the one who’s driving his SUV. ‘I don’t think I can get through.’ ‘Yes, you can; just go.’ ‘No, I’ll bump on the left.’ ‘It’s too far away.’ ‘Okay, I just don’t know how to measure the car.’ ‘Measure? What do you mean, can’t you see?’ ‘I don’t know how to explain…’ A relationship with my dad is trying to stir away his thoughts of failing. In his mind, I’m a failure. It’s funny to think I am. Because I’m not the person he wants me to be. A relationship with my dad is the act of pretending to listen, and often I think outside of the box so that I’m anywhere else but here. A relationship with my dad is wishing he wasn’t right about the things he said. Then I wouldn’t have to rebel against him. A relationship with my dad is forgetting how old we are. ‘My daughter, she’s 25.’ ‘Yuba, I’m 26.’ ‘You are? Really? When?’ He’s 50 something. I think.

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Mariam Elkholy is an aspiring poet and high school senior based in Kuwait, with an Egyptian nationality of origin. Eighteen years old, she joined local writing communities in Kuwait, where she both submits and critiques writing each week with established writers and English major graduates. Juggling both writing and school, or ‘enduring the demands of passion’ as she would call it, her work has been described as ‘mature for her age’ and ‘always of grand meaning.’ 108

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Post-war Pubs

Leave me now, do disperse! Let me travel to post-war pubs Where the pat I pat on shoulders is on increasingly dustier coats is on oak table cloths—is on clinking beer pints A gesture friendly in its touch, familiar in its love rewarding luminescent godly faces I do see now, and oh how dare they interrupt me and the ecstasy shared amongst mighty-high us Where men smile not in superiority but in humanity The rich smell of joy stewed above beneath and over them wafts every window and porch of bustling rebels now aimless in their rebellion Now laying smoking, bored on wet wooden

yellower and the daisies deliver shockwaves of perfume Where the war songs are sung by the virgin beer

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maid light on heels, tray on head and died instead Hazy shocks of young and blonde and lively Flushed red was he, the toughest lad, and mumbled his apologies Where the humble lords grabbed their men by neck in utmost brotherly console and breathed, ‘I love you, dearest friend,’ and kissed them on the cheek ‘I owe you strength, one you’ve lent me past your limit, that’s an oath I ought to keep, ‘til our ends meet, ‘til our ends meet.’

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The

When my mother placed me into the hands of Hajja Fatima, the wife of Hajj Ali, she told me that they were a good family, that they would take care of me and treat me like their own daughter, because they are people who fear the Lord. All that I had to do was be a good girl, and that my word had to be ‘by God I will.’

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Peacoc Feathe

ck’s er

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My mother disappeared into the dust of the high passage that splits through Mount Seaali and connects Sadaab to Muscat, and then descended it to join her new husband in one of the distant villages on the coast. I went to Tawi al-Nill, where the young women bathe, so that I could wash off the dust of the road put on a new dress that Hajja Fatima had taken from the case of her daughter Zamzam. The dress was beautiful, and Zamzam did not protest that it was given to me, but she went on praising its cleanness and the beauty of the dress for many days after that. Hajja Fatima, who, like Zamzam, had never gone on a hajj, trained me and taught me everything I know about housework. I learned from her how to clean the house, how to wash clothes so that they become clean and glimmering, and how to press them with my two small hands and smoothen and fold them with care so that they can be free of wrinkles when they are worn. She also taught me how to cook, so that I became better than she at cooking Qabouli and baking Mardouf bread. She taught me how to greet the neighbours and guests, how to pour coffee into small cups and how to make guests feel welcome without seeming nosey or anxious. Hajja Fatima treated me like Zamzam, with whom I spent a lot of time playing with dolls—dolls that I had crafted with great skill from the remains of old rags and pieces of wood that I picked up as I walked to the market to buy things for cooking. Zamzam did not accompany me to the market because girls ‘may not go to the market,’ as Hajja Fatima said. But Zamzam went to the house of Muallema Zoun, where the girls studied The Qur’an, and I accompanied her. She entered along with the other girls in the class, while I sat in the courtyard, eavesdropping on the repeated sounds of the verses and surahs, and memorizing the short surahs, hiding them in my heart as the other girls did.

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to the house, and she would repeat the verses that she had memorised. I would carry her copy of the Qur’an, her mushaf, in a bag of shiny green satin. Zamzam was like my sister, and she loved me very much. But she loved her mushaf, which Hajj Ali had brought back from Mecca, even more. She never allowed me to touch it or to turn its pages, except once. That one time, I was told to swear by God that I would never tell anyone that we had stopped in front of the house of her friend Maryam, who had been absent from classes for two days, and that it was her brother who had opened the door. On that occasion, after I swore upon The Quran, Zamzam allowed me to open it and to trace the ornate letters on its pages. That is when I caught sight of the feather. The book had a feather, Zamzam said to me. It was a peacock’s feather. They fall from the sky on Lailat al-Qadr so that lucky worshippers might come upon them, Zamzam told me. This feather is only for those who are promised paradise. The feather’s eye astounded me. I wanted to touch it, but Zamzam closed the mushaf and hid it. I desired to touch the feather so badly. It even started to visit me in dreams, allowing me to touch its tender fringes, and to follow the colours and scents of sandalwood that wafted from it.

I loved Zamzam and Zamzam loved me. Hajja Fatima loved me like her daughter. Every Eid, she bought a new dress for me, and Hajj Ali would give my mother some money when she visited, and my mother would reassure me, always saying to me ‘Your word is “by God I will,”’ and then leave. I loved Zamzam and Hajja Fatima, and I loved my mother, but I wanted to touch the feather more than anything else. So this is simply what I did. One day, while I was cleaning the living room, I put my hand into the green satin, and I pulled out the book. I opened it at the middle, at the place where the feather was hidden, and I touched it, without removing it from its place. I traced along its fringes and gazed at its beaming colours. I put my nose up to it and smelled the sandalwood. Then I kissed it, and hid it again in the closed mushaf. When I turned around to go out, I noticed Zamzam watching me. When she expelled me from the room, I said ‘by God I will,’ and I never raised my eyes. For the long days that passed, I did not raise my eyes to meet Zamzam’s, and Zamzam told no one the story of the feather. But as I went with her to the house of the Muallema Zoun, she exchanged no words with me, and she no longer played with dolls with me on the roof. None of this mattered to me very much, since I loved Zamzam and she loved me, but I love the feather more. Translated from the Arabic by Sam Wilder.

I wanted the feather so intensely that I learned how to pray from Hajja Fatima, and I became even keener about it than Zamzam. I never cheated on the days of Ramadan, no matter how strong the heat was. Every night I awaited Lailat al-Qadr, opening my palms in supplication so that the peacock’s feather would fall into them. But it never once fell into my hands.

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Fighting

Coma 118

Plag Mask Suffocating

Departure By Jonas Elbousty Washing hands had become his obsession Wear your mask and respect your boundaries Six feet, he would tell his neighbours when they passed by The plague hit him He collapsed into a coma Like a dream that never ends His lover lay across from him In a hospital bed Fighting her airlessness Moving around recklessly Searching for oxygen He was deep in his dream That her moving and twisting fell on deaf ears She was suffocating His dream got deeper and deeper Before he could wake up She had died He never knew ‘til he joined her.

gue k 119

Hasty For a couple of nights, I surveilled the house from the outside. It was massive. Lights beaming upwards from the ground intersected to sculpt a star. The garden sprawled over two hundred metres into the distance. With its glass façade, the house gave the impression of being spacious. I wanted nothing more than to meet the artist who had never left her house for the past two years except to attend to urgent matters. She never answered her phone, either. Her husband would always say, ‘She’s exhausted,’ ‘She’s sleeping,’ ‘She’s drawing’ or ‘She’s ill.’ Each time, there was a new and ready excuse.

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Spirit 121

time. I took in the white walls and doors, the elegant cupboards affixed midway up the wall, the banister of the glass stairs: everything was brushed in white. Nearby canvases were covered by wavy lines, their cheery hues radiating joy. The spines of book covers stretched out from the

just as she had asked me to over the phone after my visit. Over the past few months, when the artist hadn’t answered the phone herself, I remembered what the newspapers had written about her husband, who had made her disappear for unknown reasons: ‘The artist who gets all the critics to sit up … how dare he!’ I saw her coming down the stairs. She wasn’t as ready as I had thought she would be. She was in a milky pyjama set: the sleeves dotted with small roses, and the elasticated bottoms hanging just below her knees, revealing her smooth legs. Her toes peeked out of open feather slippers, her nails painted pistachio, her brown hair with eye-catching highlights wrapped into a bun above her shoul-

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of herself. She welcomed me with a slight dip of her head. It didn’t seem like she wanted to shake hands. She raised the blind with the press of a button on a small device in her right hand. I watched the blind go up two metres, revealing a sheet of glass; beams upon beams of light streamed into the large room. I could hardly conceal my amazement. Through the glass lay the garden, and if you raised your eyes ever so slightly, you’d see the turquoise of the ocean afar blending into the azure of the sky. The light streaming into the room rethem new life. The artist gestured to two slightly raised seats with a table between them. It seemed her choice of this raised seating was intentional so that we could see the sea and the garden at once. We were facing each other, her face free of any powder, her wheat-like complexion clear and captivating. But when our eyes met, hers looked empty, devoid of meaning. I pushed the thought to one side when her house help entered without smiling. ‘Coffee? Tea?’ ‘Coffee.’ I returned my gaze to the slim woman in her billowy, flowered pyjamas, catching her as she combed her hand through her hair. She had untied her bun, allowing the locks to cascade to her mid-back. ‘You said that you write features for foreign newspapers about artists,’ she started.

The house help placed the cup of coffee before

‘Yes, features. The artist, their life, their home, their work. I make it all terribly interesting.’

I pointed to the lipstick smudges on her cheeks. She rubbed them gently with the palm of her

‘I see.’ She didn’t say anything else.

though she seemed as calm as ever except for her hand hastily combing through her hair.

I started to consider the canvases, which were lined up tastefully, and noticed that grey and yellow dominated the colour palette in most of the works. While I sipped my coffee, a handsome man of similar age to the artist came down the stairs. Despite the white hairs that had colonised the sides of his head and his temples, he still looked at me, face to face, whilst the artist kept her back to him. He squeezed her shoulders from behind and said good morning to us both. Without turning, she patted his hands before he removed them and left the room.

‘Let’s get back to the questions. The house is quiet now. Everyone’s gone out.’ ‘Right … as I said before … art and life.’ ‘Sorry, but since when have you been writing such features?’ ‘I don’t have a steady post yet, but because I’m good at English, I correspond with interested newspapers and get different forms of payment. I don’t have a job title.’ ‘Okay, so you’re interested in art, then?’

‘So, would you like us to begin? Do you have any questions prepared?’

‘Well, not just art. I’m interested in women who are chefs, interior designers, musicians, novelists.’

Before I could open my mouth, three beautiful girls descended the stairs. Two of them seemed to be almost teenagers, and the last one, I guessed, couldn’t have been more than seven. Their hair was highlighted, their shirts neatly tied below their belly buttons, their trousers folded above their ankles, necklaces dangling, earbuds in, bright lipstick, French perfume, shiny backpacks, their sneakers tapping in excitement. They embraced their mother and kissed her. Still facing me, she soaked up the kisses and the hugs. The three girls left with their father, but the artist never turned their way, never waved. She was satisfied with those small and soft squeezes of the hands that had been laid on her.

She nodded mechanically. It seemed she wanted it all over and done with as quickly as possible.

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‘So … it seems like you have a wonderful family.’ I wanted to start our conversation from a safe place. ‘Yes, a wonderful family.’ ‘A gorgeous house and fabulous taste. A view of the ocean and the garden. I bet it puts you in the right mindset to create works of art.’ The most infuriating thing about interviewing someone is when you’re speaking with exaggerated enthusiasm while the other person just looks at you with a cold face, like a block of ice, with barely any reaction. What was most terrifying was that her eyes seemed so empty. I started asking questions about her beginnings in art, her degree, what role her family played – basically everything that brought her to where she was today. Her answers were clipped, with no elaboration, no eye contact. Her face was turned towards the windowpane the entire time, as if she were awaiting the arrival of another guest, but they never showed. General answers any person can give about any old thing were all I got out of her. I exerted ample effort, tried to vary my questions to elicit something worthwhile, but she would resolutely shut down any further probing. A provocative question it in the middle of my other questions. ‘Let’s talk about the hidden pieces.’ Her face blanched, and in one swift movement, she swept her hair back into a bun. I could almost feel her heart beating beneath her milky pyjama chemise.

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‘Where are you getting such lies from?’ I was unsure of where my courage sprung from, and my blood rushed through my ears. ‘You had a series of canvases where you’d drawn abstract pieces, feathers and wings. You then asked for all those pieces back from the exhibitions and destroyed them. That’s what the critics have been saying for years.’ ‘No one knows if I beheaded them or not.’ ‘But you recalled them even though they were being displayed across the globe, and some had been bought.’ It seemed as if she was going to say something frantic, jerking her head left and right. Instead, her mouth suddenly let loose an embittered laugh. ‘We’re ending this here.’ ‘We can take out that question if you like. Please, I really need this interview. My livelihood is at stake.’

She fell quiet for a moment and then barked at her house help, demanding she pick up my coffee cup. I didn’t know if that meant I had to leave the house immediately. In slow motion, I began to put my papers, pen and recording device in my bag, hoping she’d change her mind. I stood up and almost stumbled, forgetting how high the luxurious seat I had just been perched on was. Before I could say goodbye, she asked, ‘Did you see them?’

‘What do you mean?’ ‘The paintings. The wings … the undulating wings.’

visiting galleries. I liked the one that you had dubbed Hasty Spirit. It cost quite a bit. I had want-

wanted it. I remember it well in the gallery: the feathers and amputated wings in the middle of an intense whiteness.’ She stayed quiet. No doubt she thought of me as she would any other journalist, coming with stock questions, not knowing anything about her artistic process.

‘But they were celebrated. People looked at them in admiration, appreciated them.’ ‘Let’s stop here. I don’t want you to publish this conversation.’ She stretched out her hand to pluck the recorder from mine. I took a few steps back, hugging my bag to my body. Now that she was closer to me, I noticed tiny crow’s feet around her eyes and a few wrinkles etched into her forehead although her skin was fresh and clear. Her movements were light, her feather slippers making not a sound. Her face was terribly thin, her eyes blinking more quickly than before. Her thick eyelashes partially veiled her eyes, eyes void of any meaning.

She held her head in her hands. ‘Please, just get out.’ I left, anger coiling over itself in my stomach.

split up. It took a piece of us every time we looked at it.’ I left, my blood boiling. I still hadn’t calmed down a few days later. My hatred for that woman festered. That woman who had everything; how could she complain? She could just as easily have talked about her husband and how he ate up her feelings of security as she talked about freedom and feathers. Two weeks later, the artist got in touch. She asked myself from wanting to meet her again. This time, she had styled her hair, and she wore a black, tree-patterned chiffon dress. It accentuated her height and how skinny she was under its pleats and soft folds. She opened the blinds, and the more at ease than the last time. Without asking me, the house help served a cup of coffee and some pancakes. The artist gestured for me to tuck in. I couldn’t ask any of the questions from last time. I’d have to think of something new. I took out my papers, my pen and my recorder as I wolfed down the last of my pancakes. She clasped my hand and looked left, then right, blinking at a frightening speed. Her grip gave me goosebumps all over. She was close enough for me to peer into her eyes. A bottomless blackness. A petrifying darkness.

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‘They don’t want to think of feathers.’ ‘Who’s they? Who said that? The exhibition was successful; all the critics wrote glowingly about it.’

aged ideas.’

‘Let me start recording.’

painted to match the layers of her chiffon dress. ‘I want to say things that can’t be printed.’ I stammered. I regretted coming. She was toying with me all over again. I had wanted to get something that no one else had elicited from her, but here she was wasting my time. She got down from her chair and turned on her heels in a full circle in the living room. ‘Those were my wings,’ she said with emphasis and pointed to her chest with both hands. ‘Mine.’ The house help passed by with twins in a pram. ‘How cute they are!’ I screeched, trying to change the subject. The artist had her back to her children and the scowling help whereas my eyes locked with those of the twins. The help made sure they were strapped in properly, then left the house. ‘Are you free?’ ‘I don’t understand.’

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‘It looks like you’re free. You have your whole life ahead of you. Look at what I produced on my own.

‘They’re wonderful, the twins – they really are. I’ll be turning forty, and I’m not married yet.’

‘I don’t get you.’ ‘Listen. I don’t touch them. I don’t kiss them. I don’t clean them. I still haven’t come to grips with them being here. Not yet. The doctor said, “It’s postnatal depression,” but it’s not. I know myself. They’re going to be two soon, and I still don’t look in their eyes. They’re a destructive nightmare.’

me as I appreciated the speed with which she was blinking. Her face was no longer as clear as when was no good at coming up with supportive words in such moments. ‘You have a family. Isn’t that amazing?’ ‘They suck up everything. They take everything. They eat up time. They steal feelings. They don’t leave anything untouched. You won’t understand any of this till they arrive.’

I was in shock! I couldn’t believe it. She was lying. What kind of woman was this? What did she ever have to do? I had seen the help watching the twins, cooking their food, always putting things back where they belonged. The help did everything with a sullen expression, and here was this woman complaining! I found it pointless to stay any longer. We weren’t recording the conversation. I was losing time. I got up. ‘I’ve got to have conversations with some more serious people.’

up because of the Hasty Spirit painting.’ I sighed and found myself turning around to look her in the eye. ‘It’s none of your business.’ I crossed my arms in front of my chest. Next thing I knew, I was crossing the large living room, hoping never to return. But she snatched the door from my hand and shut it again. ‘Shall we go up to the studio?’ Her eyes were full of pleading, of unrest. I don’t know why I couldn’t refuse her. There was a lift in the corner of the hall that I hadn’t seen before. We went in and up to her private studio, whose window opened out onto the garden. The sea was even easier to make out from here. ‘The colours are suffocating. You always have to have fresh air.’ ‘What exactly is it that you want? You’re wasting my time.’

‘Look.’ Something – mere outlines? - over six incomplete canvases. ‘I’ve lost the motivation to complete anything. An idea washes over me, and I rush to the studio, but then it dies immediately.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Just does. I’m so troubled these days. My husband doesn’t want to believe it. My daughters avoid me. No one can imagine that the initial lines for these six paintings have brought me such distress, but please believe me. The nights are long as I weep and wail because for two years, I haven’t completed a single thing. All my plans and ything.’ ‘But you have so much time and imagination, and support.’ ‘I don’t look after anyone now. That’s what I’ve decided. I brought the help in for this very reason, but no one looks after me anymore, either.’

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‘But your husband...’ ‘So generous, I know. But in reality, all he does is avoid me now. I’m of no use to anyone.’ She looked down at the ground, settling her chin little I could do with her whimpering like this. I sat down in the chair opposite her. The warm breeze was playing with her hair. Her dress pooled around her brown sandals. The scattered clouds in the sky didn’t inspire me to say anything in particular. I just couldn’t feel sorry for her. She was like this

‘Can I ask you a serious question?’ She raised her head and looked me in the eyes. ‘If you were and are in such a bad state, why did you agree to this interview? Why did you allow me to come here?’ ‘Months have passed, and not a single journalist has got in touch. No one has asked me to take part in any exhibition. Yes, my husband answers all my calls and makes excuses to everyone without my permission, but when people stop calling or trying to see me, the feeling that I’m going to be forgotten after all shoots through the roof. Then you called, and I thought, what I if I can reclaim some part of myself? What if, by talking to you, you help me get my rhythm back?’ ‘So, you’re basically exploiting me and insulting me at the same time?’ I couldn’t fathom what made our conversation take such a dark turn. I felt the whole place was drowning in a haze of strangeness. I just wanted to slip out and get as

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far away as possible from this face on the verge of sobbing. ‘I’m not insulting you. I’m saying that you’re of use to me. I called you back because you stirred up something in me, things that were turned off. You’ve got to help me. We’ve got to keep talking.’ ‘I came so that we could have an interview, and here I am now stuck in your unjustified breakdown.’ The artist wiped her tears, regaining some of her composure. ‘Here you are a second time, telling me that I have done something despicable.’ I felt exhausted, not helped by the hot winds of that blazing summer that never stopped blowing. ‘I didn’t think things would get this complicated. From the outside, you seem like a liberated womsurrounded by your husband and beautiful daughters. Then this house. You were my favourite artist. Those bold opinions that you used to share so fearlessly without a care for whatever criticism meant to me because I’m just one of your many I insisted on sitting at a table facing your Hasty Spirit painting – that feather swimming in the whiteness. Those loud, intersecting, wondrous colours. I’d always say that when I got enough money, I’d buy it and hang it in front of my bed. But my mensions to its ripples and colour gradient. I said ing down. That evening, each of us didn’t budge from our positions: I saw it going up, and he saw it going down. We haven’t spoken since that night. I told him, “Under no circumstances can I live with

a man who doesn’t appreciate art.” I thought it gether after a few days. But our anger simmered for some time, and we separated permanently. He saw me as petty, quick to judge.’ ‘The odd thing is that the painting itself disappeared from the gallery. I asked who had bought it, but it was all hush-hush, and I don’t know why I then began to check on things from outside of your house over a few nights. And then I wanted to talk to you. But since this painting of yours disappeared, you haven’t said anything worth mentioning. Your answers are brief, repeated – pathetic, actually. So there’s nothing but disappearance and coming undone.’ The artist looked at me in wonder. I added, ‘Can you answer me now? Was the feather going up or down?’ ‘I was more confused than the both of you when painting it. It took me many years to draw it. In my moments of weakness and fragility and self-revulsion, I felt that it was plummeting down into the whiteness. I painted the little feathers to droop so they would drown with me in my darkness. But then, in moments of bliss and excitement, I made it go up, changing the direction of the brush, and made the little feathers look upwards, glowing.

We stayed quiet for a long time. Then I found myself standing suddenly. ‘I’d better get home.’ ‘Can you stay? Can we talk? I have no one to talk to, no friends, no one. My husband comes back late and tired. I can’t for a single day be a good mother, let alone an artist. I...’

for my life and time. I’m not like you, sitting in a do.’ ‘How I miss that spirit! It’s no longer inside of me. Since I’ve seen you, I’ve wished that your lively spirit would seep into me.’ She seemed weak, sad, torn up from the inside, deserving of pity. I quickly made my way down the stairs. She came down behind me just as quickly. I felt that this woman was unstable and that she’d never leave me be. Her husband entered the garden, and I slowed down on the steps. I saw him through the glass leaning over the twins and kissing them and his three daughters hanging onto his arm. They were all fused together in one animated painting, a painting that the artist never wanted to look at, ever. I turned to look into the artist’s eyes, eyes empty of any meaning. Some sort of haze was clouding her vision, preventing her from seeing the painting outside, with its warm colours. She clasped my hand again and started begging. The help had just come inside with an empty pram. She saw me trying to pull my hand out of the artist’s grip, but she didn’t say a word. She ignored me. The happy family outside, which was taking turns playing with the two little ones and blowing bubbles, couldn’t see me. The family couldn’t artist’s tears or her shaking body. Their eyes were staring at the bubbles going up, however shortlived they were before popping.

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‘Come. I’ll show you where I’ve hidden Hasty Spirit.’ ‘You’re the one who bought it?’ ‘Yes.’ She pulled my arm while I momentarily remained still. We walked down a long hallway and then entered a bedroom. Seems like she and her husband sleep separately. I wonder who initiated it. ‘I sleep here.’ ‘Here?’ It seemed my tone was more disapproving than it ought to be. Then I saw it: the painting – with the feather going up – hanging above the bed. It was a marvellous feather. Its colours blended into blue, yellow, lead grey and a light milky

you this painting. It’s yours. Take it.’ I stayed still, stunned. I saw her climb up on her bed and put it in my hands. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to me, but it does to you.’ I don’t know how things had settled onto this frequency. I came to do an interview. I came with vengeful intentions because of a painting that had fractured my life, and now that very painting belonged to me. ‘I just have one condition: that you come by sometimes. That we talk. That’s it.’ She put the painting in my hands. Up close, the colours were pulsing with life. Her face perked up. She wasn’t blinking as frantically as she had before.

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We left the room and walked along the spiralling hallway. This time, she didn’t hold my hand. She left me to leave the house. I left with the painting under my arm. The husband nodded at me with a faint smile. The happy girls made me feel grateful to have been in their mother’s company. The twins just kept on chasing the bubbles. In the car, I looked at the painting once more. It seemed like the feather was falling into the depths of darkness, never to arise again. Translated from the Arabic by Sawad Hussain.

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Warmth

Discovered 132

Glowed Light

Flower

The Music of the First Instrument Osama Esber When your lips That descended from your mouth like a light from sunset When your cheeks became a red rose with two petals And glowed with the light of love When your lips crossed the borders And poured over my lips With the strength of a fountain I was waiting for their bless As if it were my liberating light, Which would unshackle my feet, And put me on a new road. On a road of a long kiss That held me between its dreamy arms and took me

And long roots of trees travel I was born again with a face of a lover and a heart when it beats, I know that this kiss Which was born out of two stones And people discovered with it a new life, I knew that I tasted this kiss

I know I cherished it Spent by two loving bodies

That guided people in the darkness Feeling as if I were living the beginning of creation

Translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, PhD.

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Transi

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to the Inside

ients Contrary to his usual habits…he’s sitting there, looking out to sea before sunset…It’s the time when he normally takes a walk...following the advice of the doctor at his local clinic… who’s recommended that he take walks if he wants to lose some of his excess weight…and look after his frail health… now that he’s over sixty.

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He likes staring at the sea…following the lines of golden waves…and relishing its intoxicating scent as in a semi-circle over the sea in front of him...On the horizon, a diving boat is visible, approaching rapidly…It reminded him of his friends, some of them still alive, others not; he smiled at the memory of those sweet, exhausting days…At the scuba dive leader who almost cost him his life, when he had tugged on the rope twice asking to be pulled back up from the seabed, but the leader had only responded the third time. He was furious as he climbed back on board, but the leader calmed him down, apologising and kissing his forehead. He explained that it wasn’t negligence; he was just thinking about his eldest son. He didn’t respond, and the other man had sworn that he would not eat his dinner until he had forgiven him…With a smile, he grabbed a small pebble that he spotted on his right and threw it into the sea. ‘God’s mercy on you!’ he muttered. He stared at the diving boat…It pained him to see it with no sails…no oars…in their place…engines that grew louder every time the ship approached the harbour…pushing it relentlessly forward…like a sheep, joyfully slaughtered after the move into a new house has been completed or sheared after the circumcision of a new-born…He would look on sadly whenever he spotted the prow of the diving boat, rising and dipping in the water, and the way the sea would split apart in front of him, as though it were sympathising with his plight and facilitating a fast breakthrough…That’s how it seemed to him. The diving boat came much closer, heading for the city’s harbour, which was not far from him. Every time it came closer, it slowed down…At that moment, he would stand up and look to see the people didn’t spot anyone from his group of people. Translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, PhD.

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137

Mysterious

Lonliness

Fighters

138

Lan Strange

By Akram Alkatreb

In case of loneliness In a land that doesn’t belong to anyone Fighters ignore the language of its residents. You are halfway submerged in water until mid-afternoon No bird’s wing has touched you And not a guard stayed to watch over you. Anyone would see the perfectness of his lineage The moment he goes down barefoot On your mysterious thing. Any stranger Would be scared when they pass by your house And wouldn’t tell you about the wedding bed. What conversation with horses the shepherds suddenly understood the secret of your open door After dawn.

Translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, PhD.

nd er 139

A Trap What do you see now From your nothingness Do we continue to celebrate Our lost victories We who dance In hell

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No D

Doubt

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She left the phrases suspended on her phone screen while she tried to increase her internal sense of reality. Things around her repeat themselves in dull monotony, as he does the same thing over and over again in front of her. She often feels that, together, the two of them are nothing more tious to the point that the viewer, fed up with the lack of any authentic role or scene, loses all interest and leaves. They have become the product of a movie that the viewer sees every single day as es a piece of paper and a pen before him, trying to spot any difference in the scene he observes daily from behind the window, which nearly swallows the entire house. Nothing is new, and events proceed in the same monotonous order; even the window cleaner hangs from his suspenders at the exact same time. Each day at six in the morning, Nazem wipes the dust off the window. The desert is not far; they are in fact in its heart, but this city has managed to outsmart it. His eyes meet the only spectator behind the glass, but he does

facing a blind eye that sees only itself in the glass. When he left the village for Mumbai, his grandmother told him that the village had one spirit whereas the city had many. That is why those seeking new lives go to the city. From Mumbai, he moved to Dubai, where he carries out the same tedious job every day, following lives from behind the windows he cleans. He sits cross-legged atop the tallest building in the world, examining it from top to bottom as if he were an invisible god. He sees destinies stumbling along beneath him and sits there, unable to control them as a real god would. Sometimes he glues himself to the window to glimpse the blurred shadows behind it, feeling

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as if he can almost grasp a life, but he always remains like one stricken by darkness before the sun returns to once again cast its rays on things and places. A god descends to earth, revealing his own fragiliand one shadow, but no one believes him or sees him. He feels stuck in this vast city and in his distant memory, in the small village, where everything splinters to reveal more than one meaning. But the many meanings here wound him, reminding him of his hollowness; these are all sensations he cannot

place. Suddenly the power goes off. It must be the landlord harassing them because most of them have not yet paid the rent. Nazem retreats to his side of the room and sleeps. His trap waits for him in the morning, a trap to which he willingly goes.

left a suicide note saying that he had spotted the trap early on and decided to jump in the style of Gilles Deleuze but without waiting 70 years like

together, ignored by everyone.

investigating the death jotted down a marginal note that the victim was another madman of modernity, one of those who are no longer seen in scruffy clothes, scratching their heads as they wander the streets muttering gibberish, but who now wear neat suits and lead perfect lives. They

Nazem returns to the small screen in his room, a

a smell, dried blood and a gun with a silencer. An

small secondhand TV that one of his roommates received as a gift or stole. It does not matter. What matters is that they have all found another window from which to see the world. He turns on the TV and sees her there. She returns to her position in front of her phone screen, in an evening replay of

Nazem’s blind eyes as Nazem was cleaning the window. There is a cosmic barrier between him and the blood on the other side, which he cannot see. ‘How many more madmen are there in

photo of his small god, the last thing his mother put in his bag. He prays to his god. They share

her–her husband, presumably–but the word has no meaning for her now. They share a cold bed and even colder details. She walks around him in circles as if praying, silently pleading for him to notice her, but to no avail. He is silent, and she sits alone onstage, enacting a solitary monodrama in which she is the wife in name only, isolated in her cruel reality. Not much else happens in the scene, and Nazem continues to stare at her face though he does not understand the Arabic language of

death scene as it is, including the repeated scene from the same movie, the actress who leaves the phrase suspended on her phone screen as she continues increasing her sense of the reality around her. Today, however, she is without that lonely observer. Translated from the Arabic by Nema Alaraby.

common, something bigger than language or

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Clear Silence

Crowd Loudness

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Theatre By Wafai Laila A huge crowd was gathering at your door You kissed everybody Touched everybody’s hand You were laughing with them To the point that I couldn’t recognise myself The festival is now over… The empty chairs, The loudness of the crowd,

I come back from the immense theatre To my cold room I slowly take off my clothes I touch my face minus the makeup, My lips minus the words, My eyes minus the tears, Everything has dried out, And fell. The silence is harshly ringing The impacts of a bloody slap are so clear On my mouth Thinking that it was A lipstick Your punch. Translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, PhD.

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Paradi They were in Paradise: palm trees, velvety grass and baskets of fruit. The magnificent sea extended forever, a vast panorama mounted just for their eyes. Young women wore traditional costumes dotted with small flowers, their energetic smiles never flagging. She had an intense urge, for a brief moment, to touch the cheek of the girl with very pale skin, running her finger along it to see whether it was as delicately soft as it was translucent. But she was in Paradise; how could she possibly hope for any more delicacies than already surrounded her here?

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playing this game all of her life. When there was no one there to provide the ballast on the other end of the seesaw, she made someone up and balanced their weight against hers in her head.

He wasn’t looking at the sea; he was gazing at her. He kept on repeating it. My love…my love… Getting here had been strenuous, exhausting—the route that had led to these words of his, uttered in Paradise. Her soul had paid dearly to reach this destination. This moment. And the moment had to prove worthwhile. He fed her a slice of papaya. She savoured the in her mouth. She couldn’t help wondering whether he behaved this way with his wife. In a cheerful voice, she asked, ‘Are we going to ride one of those jet skis?’ He gurgled, ‘We’ll do whatever you want to do.’ No one had ever said that to her before. Wonderingly, she repeated the sentence to herself. We’ll do whatever you want to do. As a child, her favourite game had been playing on the seesaw. She would sit down on one end, her sister on the other, and then she would try to balance their weights perfectly until they were both suspended in midair. In various shapes and forms, she had gone on

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He took her by the hand, ready to walk along the sand. He told her about the island’s history, as he had read it in the tourist brochure. She was having some trouble balancing this moment— this impossible-to-happen moment that was now real—against the hard bargaining she had waged with her soul to arrive at this impossible moment that was now. And it was Paradise—that place for which all believers must strive their utmost, to remain on the path to attaining it. She had thought her faith in it—in its promise of happiness—was had to pay to get there. Still, her mind would not stop playing that game of seesaw. The two balance-pans of the scale: the hard work that this ultimate goal demanded went into one pan, and the moment with him, alone, on the seashore, went into the other. They rode the jet ski. They got soaked, and when she saw the water pouring off his hair, she slid off her mental seesaw to wring it dry. They ran back to the wood cabin that sat only a few metres from the shoreline. ‘Shake the sand from your feet before you come in!’ she cried.

tonished her.

‘This many shirts, just for the few days to be spent here?’ he laughed.

‘I brought them, just in case—’ The bathroom attached to the cabin was roofless, open to the sky. Standing under the showsentence. Just in case she loathed a shirt he happened to put on? Just in case it rained so hard and so constantly that every one of the shirts got wet and would not dry out? Just in case we were to decide to stay here forever? She dried herself off with a fresh-scented bath towel and put on a long cotton shift. As they strolled to the seaside restaurant where they would have dinner by candlelight, he was humming a tune. ‘A roofless bathroom!’ he remarked. ‘What an idea!’ She wanted to tell him that her son had always wished he had a bathroom with no ceiling so that he could watch the stars as he bathed. But she had warned her son that Google Maps would take his photograph naked in his bath open to the sky. Her son believed her and stopped making such demands. She did not tell this man, whose hair was They always avoided any mention of their children. He began peeling a shrimp for her. She was thinking about how badly she wanted to phone her son so that she could tell him about the cabin’s roofless bath. But the boy did not even know where she was, and she was not certain that her mother would pass the phone to him. Indeed, she could not even be sure that her mother would pick up

She squeezed lemon over the peeled shrimp before plunging her fork into it. She imagined the shrimp screaming as it was stabbed, pleading to save itself. Probably, she thought, it was time she turned vegetarian. On their honeymoon, her husgers. She had glanced around nervously and whispered, ‘But we’re in such a posh restaurant.’ He had laughed.

hands,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Back then, she had been a mere child disguised in the body of a young woman, and she was perfectly happy hearing his response. He ran his own small private company; of course, he knew so much more about such things than she did. And that’s exactly the way it went. He always knew more than she did. The waitress who was serving them, in that seaside restaurant, brought them sweet sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves. His hair was no longer wet; the sea breeze must have dried it. His eyes followed the waitress, walking away. She set her fork down loudly on her plate. With a little jerk of his head, he muttered, ‘Their bodies are so small! Have you noticed that?’

sticky rice. He began talking about the temple complex they would visit the next day.

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‘We’ll light incense there!’ he added, a little thrill in his voice. It occurred to her that his enthusiasm sounded a lot like her son’s jubilation whenever he got a new game. She pondered the nirvana they had made

He opened the backpack that never left him.

hovering, since they had avoided using their hands

‘I brought water, just in case. Here, have some.’ A few months before, her manager at work had learned that she was seeing the manager of the

The next morning, as she hurried to keep up with him, she was giving little shakes to her leather sandals to rid them of the particles clinging there. He turned back to her abruptly.

First, her manager had threatened her. Then, when her beloved intervened, the manager merely transferred her to another branch. She lost her work colleagues and the atmosphere of mutual

‘Did you lock up the room?’

as the promotion she had been anticipating. The other branch was a much greater distance from home. She did not have the nerve to ask him what had happened to him, to his position, after they

‘Room? What room?’ ‘The cabin.’ ‘Ah, of course, yes. There’s nothing valuable in there, anyway.’ ‘Passports. If they go missing, we won’t be able to return.’ As she heard the word return, the seesaw landed again in her head. They had gone along an arduous path. She had paid the heavy costs of that hard journey, one gasping breath at a time. And so they had arrived at this moment. They had arrived in Paradise. What return? She squeezed his hand, hard, but he did not understand what she was trying to say. In the hot sun, they climbed steps, many of them, before reaching the temple with its gilt-covered outlines.

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‘But I’m thirsty.’

answer to that question on her own. Nothing had happened. His colleague—her manager—had protected him. Inside the temple, he knelt. Watching him, she felt uneasy and remained standing. The memory of all that had happened at work upset her, spoiling her mood. She wished she could keep from remembering it, here in Paradise. Even if it was a bit hotter here than one would expect in Paradise. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her skin. She had not quite realised that mounting the golden temple, swimming in the sea, and eating at the seaside restaurant, or perhaps in another restaurant like it nearby, would become such a routine over their days here. She had not counted how many days it had been. Perhaps a fortnight had

passed, she did not know, really. It was as though counting off anything was not appropriate to the conditions of Paradise. Today was a very hot one, and the reverberations of the chanting in the temple—omm, omm, omm—created an interminable echo that resounded, bounced and whirled around inside of her, as if her body itself were a vast, high, empty echo-chamber of a temple. She wanted to stay on the beach and swim some more. He said he wanted to return to the cabin for a midday nap. ‘I’ll join you a bit later,’ he said. ‘We’ll go on a sailboat ride at sunset.’ While swimming, she became very tired all at once. She came out of the water and lay down on the sand. She felt an enormous omm swelling inside her body until it fused with a burning sensation that she then felt in her gut. She must speak to her son. She couldn’t withstand this any longer; she had to talk to him. She would phone him. She dragged her feet through the sand towards the cabin, trying to determine how best to reach him, as well as what she would say to him when she did. She leaned quietly against the door, which was not

She stayed there, inside the cabin, alone. She stared at the pineapple juice, rivulets trickling across the wood floor. The waitress must have knocked it over, hurrying to get out. She could not help but notice how twisted and bunched-up the young woman’s uniform had been as she ran she had seen on the other young women serving there. Her mind began to run through a series of still photographs, including the two of them in the aeroplane as he stared down at his plate, off. But the food in here was free, after all, and it looked appetising. He was the sort of person who would eat, just in case—otherwise, he might be hungry later. She had picked up this just-in-case habit from him. When they were walking around and he spotted toilets, he would announce immediately: We may as well go in because we might of the boat rides, he would say: Best to go ahead and eat now, since we might get hungry later on. It was ridiculous that she was remembering these scenes at this particular moment. Had he tried to embrace the Thai waitress just in case?

voices, or sounds, and she peered into the narrow crack between the door and the doorframe. He was trying to put his arms around the waitress— the one with such a small body—who had arrived with a glass of pineapple juice on a tray. Determined, he was grabbing at the waitress’ body and trying to pull her to him. Suddenly, he sensed her presence and shouted at her, as the young woman

She stared at the wet stain the juice had made beneath her feet. She felt slightly dizzy, but she walked steadily enough over to the wardrobe of drawers. She took out his passport and turned it over in her hands a couple of times. She began to imagine how it would look if she tore it into ed downward and sank into the yellow liquid still

me, it was just…just…Then he shoved the door open and left, banging it shut.

Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth, PhD.

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HEAD A WATER The following is an extract from ‘Chapter O of One’ from Head Above Water: Reflections on Illness by Shahd Alshammari, Phd. Published in May 2022 by Neem Tree Press, Head Above Watakes us into a space of intimate conversations on illness and society’s stigmatisation of disabled bodies. We are invited in to ask the big questions about life, loss, and the place of the other. The narrative builds a bridge that reminds us of our common humanity and weaves the threads that tie us all together. Through conversations about women’s identities, bodies and our journeys through life, we arrive at a politics of love, survival and hope. ‘A visit to Death interrupted my life midway, at the call it as it happened, as I saw it, as I felt it, and the conversations I heard, the faces that I saw. Would I want to narrate this experience, tell the story (and stories) of this half-interrupted life? Stories are who we are. Stories make up our most vulnerable

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ABOVE R can I speak as the mentor, when a student-self still pulsates in me? My characters are invoked from memories, at other times, accounts of others’ jolts posite characters are part of this narrative, and what drives my recollection of emotions is the emotion behind intimate conversations, meditations, musings between myself, my mother and I, my grandmother’s last words, my visions of our ‘human’ life, and a preoccupation with these stories. Stories have been the pulse that allows me room to breathe around my ribcage as it pushes against my heart, threatening to suffocate it. My heart, our hearts, her heart, Mama’s heart, all of their hearts – the place that the soul lives and dies

moments, and in storytelling we have the power to gain a sense of agency over our lives. In dialogue and in conversation are the moments that make sense of chaotic ruptures, fragments that we collect and reassemble to construct a grander narrative. I’ve always told my students that storytelling is an integral part of life. We cannot separate life from the stories we tell ourselves and others, the stories we tell ourselves about others, and stories others tell about us. But these stories are distorted by failing bodies, failing memories, and lapses, relapses, repeated delays in the transmission of brain signals to a body that forgets and remembers. Memory is a collection of snapshots in time, the work of remembering is hard labour, emotional at its best, traumatic at its worst. We can’t help but project ourselves onto distorted mirrors, and pen and paper fail to convey what really happened, what was, and what wasn’t. How are we to tell the story from one perspective if we have never experienced the other? How

on our lives? In The Quran, we are told about the vagueness of the soul and its home. And they ask you about the soul. Say: The soul is one of the commands of my Lord, and you are not given aught of knowledge but a little. (17:85) And because souls are a vast area of the unknown, and we have limited and mortal knowledge, then The mind, reason, thought, knowledge is the place nothing but a road back into the heart. The method of the heart is my starting and ending point (and I don’t promise an end). Binary thought will fail me as bodies fail to house us. I look at these bits and pieces as a bridge between that which I know to have happened, that which I think happened, and that which I fashion out of a big belief in narrating the self.’

purchased through Neem Tree Press and Amazon.

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Fourteenth Session of The Sharjah Book Fair 154

Wednesday, 1st November 1995 On the occasion of the opening of the fourteenth session of the Sharjah Book Fair, His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, member of the Supreme Council, Ruler of Sharjah, said:

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The organisation of such exhibitions, whether in Sharjah or anywhere in the UAE, contributes to the promotion and support of the cultural movement in the country. The writer should make information easy for the Arab reader. Learned children should do more research, and investigate facts and knowledge, so as to contribute to enriching Arab libraries with their valuable writings.

Writing about the history of the Gulf, and UAE, is generally accessible. But it is hard to find and search for truth among the thousands of books and documents, written or found in this area. The history of the region was not written correctly. The people of the region must rewrite their history. 156

Attention to culture has become a vital requirement to catch up with the global cultural civilisation, which stands on the thresholds of the twenty-f irst century. The imposition of previous ages on this part of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as cultural and cultural delay, imposes on us to accelerate the pace and give culture and thought its real value, so they do not disappear, and find us a place in this cultural fabric.

With the permission of Al Qasimi Publications, this speech was taken from Speeches of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates, Ruler of Sharjah, Volume I (1972-1999). 157

IN THIS ISSUE

H.H. Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Bodour Al Qasimi, Hoda Barakat, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Jokha Alharthi, Marylin Booth, Bushra Khalfan, Huda Hamad, Jonas Elbousty, Bothayna Al-Essa, Wafai Laila, Shahd Alshammari, Jamal Fayez, Akram Alkatreb, Salha Obeid and Osama Esber.