Palestinian Women's Voices in Translation

Palestinian Women's Voices in Translation Mai Al-Nakib (bio) Samira Azzam Out of Time: Short Stories Trans. Ranya Abdelrahman ArabLit, 2022 Sahar Khalifeh Wild Thorns Trans. Trevor LeGassick previously unconsidered thoughts to brew; unanticipated ways of being or becoming to gestate. In times of crisis, when lives are on the line, literature often seems the least useful of forms. But it is precisely through literature that the murdered are made immortal. While this form of immortality can never compensate for the loss of the singular and beloved human being, it can inspire generations, preparing the conditions for a more just future. This was as true of writer and activist Ghassan Kanafani, assassinated on July 8, 1972, as it is of poet and professor Raafat Alareer, assassinated on December 7, 2023. Kanafani and Alareer's voices resonate loud and clear, expressing understandable despair even as they formulate inventive ways out. To tell stories—especially when silenced or ignored—and to do whatever work is necessary toward freedom has always been and continues to be the Palestinian way. At the bare minimum, to read these Palestinian experiments toward freedom should be our way, especially now. I recommend the following three Palestinian women writers of fiction, from different periods, in different genres, whose work has been translated into English. Editorial note: A review of Shibli's Minor Detail appeared in the Summer 2020 issue of WLT. The Summer 2021 issue of WLT, "Palestine Voices," was guest-edited by Yousef Khanfar. And a bilingual English-Spanish version of Raafat Alareer's "If I Must Die," translated by D. P. Snyder, appeared on the WLT blog on December 14, 2023. End Page 12 Samira Azzam Out of Time: Short Stories Trans. Ranya Abdelrahman ArabLit, 2022 Samira Azzam (1927–67) was a short-story writer born to a middle-class family in Acre, where she lived before being forced out during the 1948 Nakba. Hers is one of the earliest post-Nakba Palestinian voices in fiction offering images of everyday life in Palestine before and soon after the occupation. As M. Lynx Qualey points out in her introduction to the new translation, while Azzam's stories may not always deal explicitly with Palestine, they "are about humans facing some sort of injustice." Azzam's universalization of Palestinian struggles aligns with current efforts to link the settler-colonial occupation of Palestine to the history of settler-colonial occupations the world over and the shared damage Indigenous peoples have suffered as a result. While every history is unique, uncovering commonalities allows for powerful alliances toward ethical transformation. Azzam's vibrant short stories provide snapshots of such potential human connections that continue to resonate today. Sahar Khalifeh Wild Thorns Trans. Trevor LeGassick & Elizabeth Fernea Saqi Books, 2023 If Azzam's short stories may seem somewhat removed from political issues, the opposite is true of Sahar Khalifeh's third and most well-known novel, Wild Thorns (published in Arabic in 1976). Born in Nablus in 1941, Khalifeh is an award-winning novelist whose work has been widely translated. Wild Thorns deals with the nitty gritty of life in the West Bank...