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Awón/Sin
We will tell each other that
we can't choose
between one country and another,
we will tell each other
that we will kill
even if we don't want to,
we will regret saying it
and we will start
all over again.
Your pain will hang inside mine,
mine inside yours, you will
comb my hair, and I will comb yours.
You will press your ears against my wall,
I will press mine against your body,
we will love and inspect,
we will try and live
with what follows us—
but no one can change this:
we are unable to tear
our eyes from each other.
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Nathalie Handal has been described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” She has lived in four continents, is the author of 10 award-winning books, translated in over 15 languages, including Life in a Country Album, winner of the Palestine Book Award, and The Republics, lauded as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers,” and winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and the Arab American Book Award. Handal is the recipient of awards from the PEN Foundation, Lannan Foundation, Fondazione di Venezia, Centro Andaluz de las Letras, and Africa Institute, among others. She is professor at New York University-AD, and writes a column, “The City and the Writer” for Words without Borders. [Author photo by Andrea Salerno.]
“Awon / Sin”: Aramaic. Awon appears frequently throughout the Old Testament, and in parallel with other words related to sin, such as chatta'th and pesha’.
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Tahia Halim (1919-2003), Four Women Braiding Each Other’s Hair. Halim was an Egyptian painter celebrated for her poetic and folkloric works.