Among the Bombed-Out Remains of an Apartment Block, I Saw a Book I’d Rendered
Within the debris of a fallen apartment block, a particular vision remained with me: a tome I had converted from English to Persian, lying half-buried in dust and ash. Its cover was torn and stained, its leaves curled and burned, but it was still legible. Still speaking.
A City During Bombardment
Two days prior, rockets began striking the city. There were no warnings, just sudden, forceful blasts. The internet was completely disconnected. I was in my apartment, rendering a work about what it means to move language across languages, and the ethics and worries of taking on a different narrative. As buildings fell, I sat revising a text that suggested, in its subtle way, for the lasting nature of significance.
Everything halted. A project my publisher had been about to send to press was halted when the printer shut down. Retailers locked their doors one by one. One night, when the blasts were too nearby, my family and I hurried down the stairs toward the shelter. I couldn’t stop worrying about the bookshelves in my apartment, holding lexicons, valuable volumes I had spent years collecting and every book I had ever translated. That archive was my lifework, and I didn’t know if I, or it, would survive the night.
Separation and Devastation
My partner left with her parents for what they thought would be safer areas – places that, days later, were also hit. My daughter travelled to stay in another city. As her train was departing, she sent me a picture: in the distance, a factory was on fire, dark smoke curling into the sky. People nearest me were suddenly far away, and threat seemed to pursue them.
During those days, emotions moved through the city like a storm: sudden terror, apprehension, righteous anger at the unfairness, then detachment. Beyond the personal impact, the bombardment eradicated my ability to work. Without electricity and the internet, I had no access to the quick look-ups and references that the work demands.
Outside, blast waves tore windows from their frames; at a cousin's house, every sheet of glass was broken, the belongings lay ruined, household items spread throughout the rooms. When I visited, a woman sat before the ruins, working at an easel, choosing not to let silence and debris have the ultimate victory.
Translating Grief
A image was shared online of a 23-year-old writer who was lost when missiles struck a building. Her verse went viral next to her image. On a street where I once bought dictionaries, I saw an aged woman running between alleyways, calling a name. Neighbours said she had lost a son in a conflict over 30 years ago, and now, the bombs had stirred some deep-seated remembrance. She was searching for a child who would never come home.
We were all converting, in our own way: turning devastation into image, loss into poetry, grief into quest.
Translation as Defiance
A week after the attacks began, still surrounded by ruin, I found myself working on a story for young readers about a king whose daughter will recover only if she can possess the moon. Though written for children, it carried significant meaning for me then. The author, who experienced the loss of his sight yet continued creating until the end of his life, understood something about aiming at the unattainable. I wondered if the moon was the tranquility we all longed for – seemingly unattainable, yet still worth pursuing.
During those nights, I understood translation as something beyond literary craft: it was an act of defiance, of remaining, of holding on.
One day, in full sunlight, blasts hit a detention center; in those same hours, I was translating passages about a philosopher in his cell, asking for more books, insisting that language study become his “predominant activity”. For him, translation was – as the author puts it – “a fact, hope, rigor, anchor, and metaphor” all at once.
An Enduring Legacy
And then came the picture. I saw it on a website and saw that, within the ruins of another apartment block, lay one of my old renditions, damaged but surviving, my name printed on the cover. The image was in color, but it might as well have been black and white, devoid of life among the concrete and wreckage. For most of my career, I had been unseen, as all translators are. But here was my work made seen – scarred, but surviving.
I stared at the image for a long time. The author writes that “all translation is a political act”, but I had never felt the full weight of this until then. To translate, even under bombardment, was to say: “this voice had significance”. It will not be obliterated. To translate is not just to transport stories across languages, but to help them remain when everything else disappears. It is a persistent, determined rejection to be silenced.
