Maram al-Masri is a poet whose work is characterized by direct, unadorned writing with an emphasis on the quotidian. Her poetry employs simple, almost child-like metaphors that sharply contrast with the conventions of traditional Arabic love poetry. Al-Masri writes unreservedly about sexuality and love, lending her verses a fresh, unexpected quality. Her works, primarily in Arabic but often with a French dimension, explore themes of love, freedom, and social injustice with unflinching honesty.
This pocket-sized paperback is one of the twenty-four titles published for 2017 Hong Kong International Poetry Nights. IPNHK is one of the most influential international poetry events in Asia. These unique works are presented with Chinese and English translations in bilingual or trilingual formats.
In this new collection of poems, Maram al-Masri offers herself as witness on behalf of her suffering people, speaking for those who can no longer speak, articulating with and for them the passion for liberty that is the driving force of their struggle for justice. Here is a profound, heart-wrenching lament for all victims of that terrible war, for all the numberless maimed and dead."Masri's poetry vividly encapsulates the frailty of our human condition in a brutal society. It can flay you at first reading. It is fair to see Masri as a love poet whose verse spares no truth of love's joys and mercilessness, to whose work war then came, as it tore her native Syria apart, and overwhelmed it, and her." - Ed Vulliamy, THE GUARDIAN