In Memory of Emily Nasrallah

Today I learned of Emily Nasrallah’s passing. As a student at NYU, I used to shop at the Dahesh Heritage bookshop (since closed, sadly). The kind and helpful shopkeeper, Mike Masri, is the one who first mentioned her to me, placing her book Fi l-bal / In Mind, in my outstretched hands. This book of essays about her first starts in the world of journalism endeared her to me instantly. I found her writing clear and compelling, and I found myself drawn to her as a fellow human being. I was working on my Master’s degree, and teaching Arabic at various locations throughout ‘the City’. I could relate to her as a young woman with plenty of dreams. Throughout her writings and her life, she proved herself kind, firm, capable, down-to-earth, and willing to see the humor and beauty that surround us every day. Today I offer this translation of the first lines of the book (which I still keep on my shelf) in beloved memory of a woman I only ever met through her writing, and yet she lives on in my mental universe…

 

The City and the Dream

Everything in her world was unknown, the gates to the city closed…a country girl moving to the city, asking among the people she knew, looking to get her foot in the door, looking for a place to lay her head. She was, as I remember, holding to her chest a big heavy box filled with the keys to her hopes and dreams. In her eyes, she carried a radiance imparted by the bright mornings in the mountains of her village.

She also carried a passion, in which one could read if one wanted, that this wandering creature wanted to accomplish something she had yet to realize. She hoped to knock on the closed doors she faced. She was determined, despite the challenge, or even the futility, of the experience. Deep down, she held the ignorance of early buds beginning to blossom. She could not yet distinguish between the world’s goodness, and its evils. Thus she remained open to the City, with a thrilling enthusiasm, seeing all its merits, fully expecting acceptance and opportunities…but where to begin?

Translated by Melanie Magidow from Emily Nasrallah, Fi l-bal / In Mind (Beirut: Novel, 2000): 7-8.

Note:

I have been hoping to translate more of this book for years. A similar book that also inspired me is Al-Rihla / The Journey by Radwa Ashour, coming out in English soon by translator Michelle Hartman from Interlink Books.

Photo source: A file photo taken on January 01, 1960 of Lebanese novelist Emily Nasrallah is seen in a picture. AFP