Abstract
WORLDLIT.ORG 75 a POETRY Offering by Olivia Elias Hunger strike, fortieth day* Your bodies flutter on the ceiling of the room I can see your slow gestures the small bones in the joints of your hands your eyes where the night rises I must cross the pain again listen to your heart that’s growing weaker & weaker witness this madness the body devouring itself your last offering to freedom around you the barking of the jailers and their dogs while your life goes just like that sacrificed to their senseless dream of conquest Translation from the French By Kareem James Abu-Zeid Olivia Elias, born in Haifa in 1944, is a poet of the Palestinian diaspora who writes in French. After a childhood in Beirut, she moved to Montreal, then Paris. Her first book in English translation, Chaos, Crossing and Other Poems, will be published by World Poetry Books in 2022. Kareem James Abu-Zeid is an award-winning translator of authors from across the Arab world. His most recent translation is Najwan Darwish’s Exhausted on the Cross, the subject of the featured review in the Spring 2021 issue of WLT. Author’s note: 1,700 Palestinian prisoners went on hunger strike in June 2017 to earn respect for their most basic rights. As of the fortieth day, 800 were still refusing to eat. ASMA GHANEM / COURTESY OF THE ARTIST ...
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