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Home2019 (Page 2)

August 2019

they are so close they are a body and its ghost blossom and its branch   her own arcing over his prone her owning him nothing and every   she holds him in the hot grip of legs he gives into sweet imperial   riding she widening curtains of his shirt to nest in a theater of fur   around them the voices buried in wires listen though elsewhere people   tweeze bullet shells and gloves finger the ash of neighbors after still   another massacre and though reporters note the absence of outrage of Afghanis   to the latest outrage and the war’s locked in so many closets and bodies   OUR COUNTRY OUR COUNTRY AND NOTHING BUT tangle the tango lying to rise as dark falls and cherry blooms   text their wireless perfume to the account of

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Poetry
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Baltimore was developed chiefly with Masrah Ensemble in Beirut, Lebanon, and Page 73 in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2014. Fadi Tofeili translated a version of the play into Arabic. Fragments have been performed at Little Theater, Hearth Gods, Alwan for the Arts, and a living room in New York. Clare Barron, Daniel Balabane, Emily Hoffman, and Eyad Houssami have been essential collaborators at various stages.   Masrah Ensemble (مسرح انسمبل) is a nonprofit theatre company and organization that makes, develops, and fosters research and criticism of theatre with a focus on the Arab stage. Based in Beirut, Lebanon, the Ensemble aims to

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Drama
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My head is below my arms, and my face is drooped low into the toilet bowl. My hands, which were once gripping tightly onto the sides of the toilet bowl, are now placed gently on the rims. Sometimes it’s different; sometimes I am hunched over the sink with my toothbrush in my hand. If I don’t want the hardness of it, I use my middle finger instead, pressed tightly against my index finger. Right before I do anything, I look at myself in the mirror and convince myself one last time why I need to do this, and that it’s more than a need: it’s a cure that will jump-start my day,

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Non-Fiction
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The cars were aligned haphazardly along the sides of the usually-serene street. The sun’s amber rays hugged the street’s sidewalks, permeating the air with benevolence. Cats waltzed on the sidewalks as pedestrians skedaddled around; Matne Street was unusually crowded and buzzing with life. The street deliberately bear-hugged a rather squalid area on the outskirts of Mar Elias, and I always thought my street suffered greatly from being a bold lifeline between a popular shopping street and a filth-strewn wormhole. At two p.m., grocers barked orders to Syrian kids, and the infamous plumbers – who had long conquered the sidewalk – still

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Non-Fiction
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Marilyn Hacker and Lina Mounzer in Conversation   When considering who to interview for a discussion on translation, two people came to mind. It seemed a better idea not to choose between them, but instead have them be in conversation with one another. Marilyn Hacker, who lives in France, and Lina Mounzer, who lives in Beirut, are both writers who recently started translating from the Arabic. How could their disparate backgrounds and experiences come together to illuminate the backstage workings of translation from different cultural and geographic perspectives? In the absence of a face-to-face meeting, Marilyn and Lina met through an e-mail

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Interview
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“When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?” – Everything is Illuminated,  Jonathan Safran Foer   The saddest day of my life was when my father travelled to

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Non-Fiction
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Photo by Nour Annan In the absence of state-monitored public transportation, van #4 operates as a privately-owned informal “public transit” in Beirut. The van’s route begins all the way from the Lebanese University’s campus in Hadath to Hamra, carrying over 50,000 passengers a day.    I am picked up in Chiyah, next to the wall with bullet ears. This route has it all: burnt tires, an abandoned building calling out the names of dead dogs, wildflowers caught in gust. We are an unlicensed and unregistered van carrying one city. The door won’t slide and hajji has her toes stretched into air. It’s

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prose
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"التشخيص: بنيان بسيكولوجي ديبريسيف، مع ميول للهستيريا". قالت آنّا لينداو في الجلسة الأخيرة.  يومها جلبت معي الكتاب الذي أعارتني اياه قبل أسابيع، وشالاً بلون الفستق الحلبي اشتريته لها كهديّة من جارتي السلوفاكية الصامتة التي تمضي أمسياتها في نسج الشالات والجوارب بقطب دقيقة ومعقّدة. كنت أنوي أن أعيد إليها الكتاب وأهديها الشال. كانا في الكيس إلى جانبي. لكنّني، بدل ذلك، اعتذرت منها وقلت بأنّي نسيت إحضار الكتاب معي، ولم آت على ذكر الشال.  آنّا لينداو تضع دائماً شالاً لونه فاتح على كتفها الأيسر، في أكثر الأحيان. أما ثيابها فهي في غالباً ما تكون إما بنيّة، أو رمادية، أو سوداء.  قالت لي، عقب زيارتي الثانية لها،

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Fiction
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by Chaza Charafeddine, translated from the arabic by Lina Mounzer “Diagnosis: a depressive psychological structure with hysterical tendencies,” said Anna Lindau during our last session.   That day, I’d brought with me the book she’d lent me weeks before, as well as a pistachio-colored shawl I’d bought as a gift for her from my silent Slovakian neighbor, who spent her evenings weaving shawls and socks with small, complicated stiches. I’d planned to return the book and give her the shawl as a gift. They were both in the bag next to me. Instead, I apologized and told her I’d forgotten to bring the book,

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Fiction, Translations
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About Us
Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Art Journal was founded in the English Department of the American University of Beirut in 2012 with the intention of creating a space for both emerging and established writers who have a connection to Lebanon.
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