Qissat (21 page)

In some ways, my relationship with this theory resembles my relationship with my mother.

Today, with my simple discovery, having shed all former experience and sat as a spectator watching the film of my memories, I realise I have been doing this all my life because I wanted to get as close as I could to the standard people set for the feminine ideal. Whenever I went to buy shoes I would ask for 38s, then suffer from the new shoes for at least a month until they ‘softened or stretched’. Either this, or I threw them onto my pile of 38 size shoes because they were one size too small, but one step closer to the feminine ideal.

The disapproval of the man in the shoe shop shook me, my innermost being and all the hang-ups about my feet I’ve accumulated over the years, my convictions about shoe size, as it were.

The situation stunned me. A lifetime of immense suffering and trivial self-consciousness about my feet …

Why? How did this happen to me? Are there other measurements I should or should not wear?

Should I expect another shock to shake me into discovering that some other part of my unconscious is leading me unawares?

And you, do you wear the right size?

And this young man, who entered my life for a fleeting moment like a billboard that flips every minute as I pass in the car, why did he appear today?

Why hasn’t he ever asked, ‘38, really?’ before?

Why didn’t anyone else who saw me limping in tiny shoes intervene? Why didn’t anyone simply say, ‘Take off your shoes and you’ll feel a lot better! Take them off and walk barefoot.’

And me, how was I able to purchase hundreds of pairs of ill-fitting shoes simply because they were nearer to the feminine ideal? Perish my idiot shoes and perish the standards set for beauty and femininity!

All my life I have suffocated my toes in shoes that are not suitable because the size is wrong. Do you think I can make it up to my feet by walking barefoot for the rest of my life and never yielding to shoe sizes, styles and colours again?

I pause with deference and humility and offer my deepest apologies to my toes and the balls of my feet, which have often swollen from the pressure. I leave the shop wearing a new pair of size 39 shoes, with my old tiny ones under my arm. I decide to hang them in a prominent place in my house. Perhaps I will think up a creative way of displaying them that will not enhance their beauty or bring them any admiration.

I’ll put them somewhere I can see them so that I will never forget that lifetime of discomfort, swollen soles and squashed toes borne out of my insistence on a size that was too small but that would provide the opportunity for people to regard me as ‘feminine’.

D
ONIA
E
L
A
MAL
I
SMAEEL
was born in Gaza in 1971. She is an author, journalist and poet. She was editor-in-chief of the newspaper
al-Hakeeka
and has contributed to many publications. Her poetry has appeared in three collections and her book,
Raato fi Ghaza,
was published in 1995.
Dates and Bitter Coffee
first appeared in Arabic in the journal
Masharef.

L
AILA AL
-A
TRASH
lives in Jordan. Her novels include
Sunrise from the West
(1988),
A Woman of Five Seasons
(1990; Interlink Books, New York 2002) and
Illusive Anchors
(2005). She has also published a short story collection,
A Day Like Any Other
(1991), and has had a distinguished career as a journalist and television broadcaster.

S. V. A
TALLA
(translator) studied comparative literature at UCLA, and currently writes, translates and teaches in southern California. Her poetry and translations have appeared in several journals and anthologies, including
A Crack in the Wall: New Arab Poetry,
and
The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology
.

S
AMIRA
A
ZZAM
(1928–67) was born in Jaffa. After 1948 she lived with her family in the West Bank and then later made Beirut her home, where she was editor-in-chief at the publisher Franklin House. She published a number of short story collections including
Time and Humanity
and
The Feast from the Western Window.
‘Her Tale’ first appeared in
Little Things
(Dar al-Awda, 1982, 2nd edn).

L
IANA
B
ADR
was born in Jerusalem and now lives in Ramallah. She is a writer and award-winning filmmaker. Her work includes the novels
A Compass for the Sunflower
(1979) and
The Eye of the Mirror
(1991) and short story collections
I Want the Day
(1985) and
A Golden Hell
(1991). She has also published a number of children’s books and a collection of poetry. Her work has been translated into English, French and Dutch. She was General Director of Arts at the Palestinian Ministry of Culture 1995–2003 and editor-in-chief of
Dafater Thakafiyah,
a cultural monthly review.

C
ATHERINE
C
OBHAM
(translator) teaches Arabic language and modern and contemporary Arabic fiction at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and has translated the works of a number of Arab writers including Yusuf Idris, Naguib Mahfouz, Fu’ad al-Takarli and Hanan al-Shaykh.

S
ELMA
D
ABBAGH
is a British Palestinian writer currently based in Bahrain. She has been selected twice as a Finalist for the Fish International Short Story Prize (2004 and 2005) and was chosen as English PEN’s nominee for the David TK Wong Short Story Prize 2005 with her story
Down the Market.
Fish, the Irish publishing house, have also nominated her story,
Beirut-Paris-Beirut,
for the most prestigious of American short story awards, the Pushcart. Her work is scheduled for publication in several anthologies in 2006. She is working on her first novel.

H
UZAMA
H
ABAYEB
was born in Kuwait. She moved to Jordan as a result of the first Gulf War and is now working as a journalist in Abu Dhabi at Emirates Media. She has a BA in English literature and has published four collections of short stories. She won the short story prize at Al Quds Festival for Creativity in 1993 and The Mahmoud Seif El Din Al Irani prize in 1994.

N
ATHALIE
H
ANDAL
is a poet, writer and playwright. Her plays have been produced worldwide, and her short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies, magazines and literary reviews. Handal’s recent books include
Spell
(poetry CD, with music by Egyptian musician Will Soliman), and
The Lives of Rain,
which was shortlisted for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize/The Pitt Poetry Series. She is Books Review Editor for
Sable
(UK), a member of Nibras Theatre Collective and Associate Artist and Development Executive for the production company, the Kazbah Project (currently working on the feature film
Gibran).
She is the recipient of the Menada Award, an international literary prize awarded to her in Macedonia.

R
IMA
H
ASSOUNEH
(translator) is an editor, translator, writer and teacher. Her translations include the short stories of the Palestinian writer Ala Hlehel. She currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

N
ANCY
H
AWKER
(translator) is reading languages, cultures and politics of the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, with special focus on Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

R
ANDA
J
ARRAR
(contributor and translator) was born in Chicago to a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother, and grew up in Kuwait and Egypt. She moved to the US after the first Gulf War, and now lives with her child in Austin, Texas. Her fiction has appeared in
Eyeshot, Sex and the Umma, Ploughshares,
and several anthologies. She has received the Million Writers Award for best short story, and a notable nod in the 2005 Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her translations have appeared in
Words Without Borders
and elsewhere. Her first novel will be published in 2007.

J
EAN
S
AID
M
AKDISI
was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Cairo. She completed her studies in the United States, and settled in Beirut with her family in 1972. She taught English and Humanities at the Beirut University College (presently the Lebanese American University) from 1972–95. She has worked with the women’s movement in Lebanon, and written on Arab women and feminism, literature and the cinema. She is the author of
Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir
(New York: Persea Books, 1990) which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book, 1990, and
Teta, Mother and Me: An Arab Woman’s Memoir
(London: Saqi Books, 2005 and NY: Norton, 2006).

C
HRISTINA
P
HILLIPS
(translator) has a first class BA in Arabic from Oxford University and an MA in Applied Linguistics and Translation from SOAS. She has completed a PhD thesis on intertextuality and experimentalism in the later novels of Naguib Mahfouz. She has lived and studied in Jordan and Egypt and translated a number of short stories and novel excerpts. She is a regular contributor to the journal
Banipal.

N
AOMI
S
HIHAB
N
YE
’
S
books include
You & Yours
(Isabella Gardner Award for 2005),
Going Going, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, 19 Varieties of Gazelle; Poems of the Middle East,
a National Book Award finalist in 2002,
Come with Me: Poems for a Journey, Fuel, Red Suitcase, Words Under the Words,
and
Habibi,
a novel for teenagers, which won six Best Book awards. She has edited seven anthologies of poetry for young readers. A visiting writer for many years all over the world, she has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a Library of Congress Witter Bynner Fellow. Nye lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, photographer Michael Nye, and their son.

N
UHA
S
AMARA
(1944–92) was a journalist, editor and writer. Born in Tulkarem, she lived in Beirut, Qatar, London, France and Cyprus. Her writing was much influenced by her experience of the Lebanese civil war. ‘The Tables Outlived Amin’ is the title story of her collection of short stories (1981). Her book
In the Swamp City
was published in 1973.

S
AMAH AL
-S
HAYKH
was born in Saudi Arabia in 1980 and now lives in Gaza. Her fiction, poetry, criticism and essays have appeared in a number of magazines and newspapers. She studied at the Islamic University, Gaza.
At the Hospital
was first published in Arabic in the journal
Masharef.

A
DANIA
S
HIBLI
was born in Palestine in 1974. Her work has been published in literary magazines in both the Arab world and Europe. She has twice been awarded the Young Writer’s Award (Palestine) by the A. M. Qattan Foundation for her novels
Masaas
(
Touching,
al-Adab 2002), translated into French as
Reflets sur un mur blanc
(Actes-Sud 2004) and
Kulluna Ba’eed Bethat al Miqdar ‘an al Hub (We Are All Equally Far From Love:
al-Adab 2004).

R
AEDA
T
AHA
was born in Jerusalem and currently works and lives in Ramallah. She specialised in Speech Communication and Journalism at George Mason University, Virginia and worked as a press officer for President Yasser Arafat for seven years. Her book Ali, a biography of her father, Ali Taha, was published in 2002. She writes short stories and heads the Board of Directors at Khalil Al Sakakini Cultural Centre. She is also the vice-chairwoman of the Board of Directors for Riwaq (Centre for Architectural Conservation).

B
ASIMA
T
AKROURI
was born in Jerusalem in 1982. She has a BA in English from Bethlehem University and is currently studying for a Masters in Sociology at Bir Zeit University. She has published a novel,
Seat of the Absent
(2001), a children’s book,
Salma’s Plan,
which she also illustrated (2002), and
Diaries under the Occupation
(2004), which was published in France in 2006.

N
IBAL
T
HAWABTEH
lectures in journalism at Birzeit University and writes a weekly column for
al-Ayyam
newspaper. She has also produced, written and directed numerous radio and television programmes. She is a member of Beit Fajjar Municipal Council.

I could not have put this anthology together without the enthusiasm and generosity of the writers and translators. There are also many others who have given me invaluable advice and help: Nancy Hawker and Mai Ghoussoub at Telegram for reading and commenting on so many manuscripts; Hanan al-Shaykh, Samir El-youssef, Elias Nasrallah, Mahmoud Abu Hashhash at the Qattan Foundation, Ramallah; Siham Daoud, editor of
Masharef;
Zeina B. Ghandour, Ghassan Zaqtan, Fatin Farhat at the Sakakini Centre, Ramallah; Malu Halasa, Daphna Baram, Reem Kelani, Robert Irwin and Nadine Touma. As well as contributing to the anthology, Selma Dabbagh, Huzama Habayeb, Nathalie Handal, Adania Shibli and Nibal Thawabteh gave me help beyond the call of artistic duty.

JO GLANVILLE is Director of English PEN and former award-winning editor of
Index on Censorship.
As a BBC current affairs producer, she made a number of documentaries focusing on the Middle East and has also written widely on the region.

‘Sixteen authors have contributed to Qissat. Most of their concerns are very much those of a people under siege: refugee camps and border crossings; the fear of checkpoints; the terror of gunfire. But there are intimate, domestic stories too: of sweet, strong araq and bittersweet love; filial duty and the potent forces of nostalgia … a humane, richly rewarding read … no two women share the same perspective, but the kaleidoscope effect of so many visions serves to illuminate rather than blur.’
Vogue