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Remembering Sonallah Ibrahim: His ‘Arsène Lupin’

Sonallah Ibrahim died this week at the age of 88. His “Arsène Lupin,” originally written in the al-Wahat Prison Camp, Western Desert, Egypt, in 1963, appeared in translation in the Summer 2020 CRIME issue of ArabLit Quarterly. Arsène Lupin By Sonallah Ibrahim Translated by Emily Drumsta I approached the store with some hesitation. Once in front of the door, I peeked in and found what I’d been…

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The Train Passed By

By Nazik al-Malaika

Translated by Emily Drumsta

Night’s stillness stretches out into the distance

unbroken save by doves who, from afar,

coo on, confused, and dogs who bark at ancient stars

as hungry clocks devour our existence.

Out there, speeding along the tracks

the train

passed by. I’d spent the night waiting in vain

for it and day to come… The train

its sound extinguished, distant, still,

a feeble echo in my heart

is all that’s left, behind the far-off hills.

While staring at the dreaming stars, I start

imagining the train cars, the dim light

on rows of sleepless passengers,

imagining the weight of night

on tired eyelids, eyes whose vision blurs,

weary of others’ faces, pale and stark,

weary of keeping watch over the dark.

I picture bitter irritation

in souls that grow more worn with every station

their luggage waiting, as they must,

like luggage, wait beneath a layer of dust.

They sleep awhile, but wake with every thrust

from the old train, and some look through

the windows, yawning, sleepy, gazing into dusk,

then turn back to others’ faces again,

faces of strangers gathered by a train.

Some are near sleeping when they overhear

a hoarse voice mumbling, “Look here,

“These watch-hands seem as if they’re lost.

“How long ‘til we arrive? Can you tell me?”

His watch chimes three o’clock indifferently

and here the whistle cuts him off

the train conductor’s lamp, aloft

melds with the station light in the window,

and soon the tired train begins to slow.

… A boy there, crouched between the cars

exhausted but refusing sleep, he sighs

and keeps vigil over the stars.

An anxious silence gives shape, in his eyes,

to cold indifference, as fever dreams shed light

in strange, red-tinted hues upon his face.

His two lips, parted, bear the trace

of dreams that spread, beneath this barren night,

wings rustling with hidden melodies,

his eyes near closed, as if they fear

that rays of light will alter what he sees,

or that some loathsome thing might soon appear.

This boy, so troubled and sincere,

searches in vain among the others here

for more than the old mystery,

that worn-out story with a thousand chapters.

The world is weary of its heroes’ ever-afters,

and follows it unfeelingly.

This boy…

but the conductor’s footsteps pass

and then his sleepless face

is looking through the glass!

His lamp illuminates the place

he sees their faces, tired features

riders who’ve been sleepless all night long,

he sees sleepy, expectant creatures,

eyelids calling out the name of dawn.

And then the heavy footfalls fade away

into the darkness of the train.

The train passed through a wasteland and was gone

and I remained alone, immersed in black,

asking the night to bring my poet back.

Why has the train kept him so long?

Was he passed by, I wonder,

by the stodgy old conductor

making his rounds, failing to notice him,

inspecting passengers in lamplight dim?

And here I wait, and here I will remain

hoping for the arrival of the train.

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To A Girl Sleeping In The Street

Nazik al-Mala’ika

In Karrada at night, wind and rain before dawn,

when the dark is a roof or a drape never drawn,

when the night’s at its peak and the dark’s full of rain,

and the wet silence roils like a fierce hurricane,

the lament of the wind fills the deserted street,

the arcades groan in pain, and the lamps softly weep.

A guard frowns as he passes with trembling steps,

lightning shows his thin frame, but shadows intercept.

Swept away by the floods, torn to bits by the cold,

the night trembles with dark, shivers when thunder rolls.

At a bend in the road, the threshold of a door

to a house that nobody lives in anymore,

lightning flashes and shows, lying there, fast asleep

a young girl, skin ripped raw by the winter wind’s whip.

In her eyes’ innocence, in the pale of her cheeks,

the thinness of her frame, her eleven years speak.

She sleeps there, on the frozen marble of the ground,

while around her small form the November wind howls,

tiny hands clasped so tight in exhaustion and fear,

the wet pavement her pillow, her blanket the air.

She can’t sleep from the fever, the thunder, the flame

that insomnia lights deep inside her small frame.

She is thirsty for sleep, but sleep never takes hold.

What should she forget first—fever, hunger, or cold?

Twice redoubled by sleeplessness, still the pain gnaws

reignited by fever with merciless claws.

With their devilish screams, these harsh pictures inspire

specters rushing around to feed the fever’s fire,

and she covers her eyes, but her hands can’t conceal

that the dark doesn’t know, and the fever can’t feel.

The small girl goes on trembling until the sun shows,

‘til the hurricane dies down, and still no one knows.

She spent every day of her childhood in tears

body broken by homelessness, hunger, and fear,

for eleven long years, sadness never expired

her whole life she was hungry, and thirsty, and tired.

To whom should she protest? Her cries all go unheard,

for humanity’s now just a meaningless word,

and people are a mask, artificial and fake,

their sweet, gentle exteriors hide burning hate,

and where mercy once thrived in our society

now it’s merely a word in the dictionary.

Those who sleep on the street will remain discontent,

no one pities their fevers or soothes their laments—

it is savage injustice, no consideration—

what a farce that we call this world civilization!

Translated from the Arabic by Emily Drumsta

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"Revolt Against the Sun" by Nazik al-Mala'ika

Translated by : Emily Drumsta

Revolt Against the Sun

A gift for the rebels.

She stood before the sun, screaming:

“Sun! You are like my rebellious heart

Whose youth swept life away

And whose ever-renewed light

Gave the stars to drink.

Careful! Do not let a bewildered sadness

Or a sighing tear in my eyes deceive you.

For sadness is the form of my revolt and my resistance

Beneath the night—divinity be my witness!”

“Careful! Do not let the sadness of my features,

My pale color, or the shiver of my emotions deceive you.

If my bewilderment and the lines of my torrential poet’s sadness

Should appear shimmering on my brow,

It is only the feelings that inspire pain in my soul

And a tear at the frightening power of life.

It is only the prophecy that could not fly and so resisted

Sadness, in the face of a dismal life.”

“My two lips—pressed above their pain

My two eyes, thirsty for dew.

Evening has left its shadow on my brow,

And morning has extinguished my hopes yet again.

So I have come to pour out my bewilderment to nature

Among the fragrant roses, the afternoon shadows.

But you mocked my deep sadness and my tears

And laughed above my bitterness and pain.”

“Even you, Sun? What melancholy!

You are the object of my dreams’ contemplation.

You are the one in whose name my youth sang out,

Chanting in the flood of your smiling light.

You are the one I held holy and worshipped

As an idol when I sought refuge from pain.

What disillusionment! Now you are no more to me

Than the shadow of my melancholy and gloom.”

“I will smash the idol that I built for you

From my love for every radiant light

And avert my eyes from your gleam.

You are nothing but the specter of a deceptive glow.

I will craft a paradise from the dreams of my own heart;

My life can do without your gleaming rays.

We, the idealists, in our spirits

Lie the secrets of divinity and an immortality lost.”

“Do not cast your beams over my thicket!

If you rise, it is for other than my poet’s heart.

Your light no longer stirs my emotions,

For my lot is the night stars that inspire the mind.

They are friends who remain awake in the dark.

They understand my soul, my explosive emotions,

And they stretch to my eyelids radiant threads

Of silver light in the enchanted evening.”

“Night is all life’s melodies and poetry

Where the inspirational god of beauty wanders.

The soul, no longer imprisoned, flutters about in it

And spirits soar above the stars.

How often I have walked beneath its shadows and lights

Forgetting the sadness of an unjust existence,

On my lips a song with a divine resonance

Recited to my mouth by a caravan of stars.”

“How often I have gone to watch every passing light

And compose my melodies in the dark of night,

Or to watch the moon bidding farewell in the darkness

And wander in the valley of enchanting fantasies.

Silence sends a shiver through my soul

Beneath the evening calm and dark,

And light dances in my eyelids, drawing

In their depths the dreams of a hopeful heart.”

“Sun! As for you… what?

What can my emotions and my mind find in you?

Do not be surprised if I am in love with darkness,

You goddess of the flame that melts and thaws

You who shred every dream that rises

For the dreamers, and every enchanting spirit—

You who destroy what the darkness builds

And the silence in the depths of a poet’s heart.”

“The sum of your dancing lights, oh sun,

Are weaker than the flame of my resistance,

And the madness of your fire will never rend my melody

As long as my singing harp stays in my hand.

If you should submerge the earth, remember

That I will rid my temple of your rays

And bury the past that you exalted

To let the beautiful night be canopied

Over my tomorrow.”

7/8/1946

Translated from the Arabic by Emily Drumsta.

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'Arsène Lupin,' a Short Story by Sonallah Ibrahim

‘Arsène Lupin,’ a Short Story by Sonallah Ibrahim

Sonallah Ibrahim’s “Arsène Lupin,” originally written in the al-Wahat Prison Camp, Western Desert, Egypt, in 1963, appeared in translation in the Summer 2020 CRIME issue of ArabLit Quarterly. It appears here to celebrate the new translation of Ibrahim’s Warda, which was published last month in Hosam Aboul-ela’s English: By Sonallah Ibrahim Translated by Emily Drumsta I approached the store…

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Saturday Events: Emily Drumsta on 'Revolt Against the Sun'

Saturday Events: Emily Drumsta on ‘Revolt Against the Sun’

This Saturday, we’re trying out a new regular feature, highlighting events that take place online. Our first is Emily Drumsta talking Nazik al-Mala’ika’s Revolt Against the Sun, which is set for February 3, 2021: The Brown University event is set for 12 – 1 p.m. EST on February 3, 2021. You can register to attend the webinar or follow on YouTube. Revolt Against the Sun brings together poems…