Letter to Salma, by Yousef Khanfar

Letter to Salma, by Yousef Khanfar Literary Tributes [email protected] Wed, 08/09/2023 - 15:14 In the following tribute, Yousef Khanfar pens a letter to the eminent scholar Salma Khadra Jayyusi, laureate of the 2021 Palestine Prize for Literature, who passed away on April 20, 2023. Dear Salma, From a native son of Palestine to a native daughter of Palestine, I am writing to you this letter on May 15, 2023, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of Nakba Remembrance Day. I met you, many years ago, in a large bookstore in London. You were standing up, strong in silence, and you were holding up Dostoevsky on one side and leaning against a copy of the Arabian Nights. I gazed at you as a young man full of questions, and you extended your welcoming hands. We sat together at a nearby table to have tea. You allowed me to travel through your pages and listen to your vast voices. I galloped through your lines of poetry like a racing horse, with your pen traveling faster than my thoughts. Later on, I bought more and more of your books. I wanted to discover more of you, and in essence, I was discovering more of myself. You wrote with a simple pen but with towering courage. And when I look back at your journey, I came to the understanding that your life refuses summation. I wondered, with your rich body of work, when did you find the time to write? I saw you most happy at home within the cluster of your family. I saw you write in the morning.... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2023-08-09 20:14:32 UTC ]
News tagged with: #native tongue #finished reading #beautiful things #bookstore

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