Ibtisam Azem

“يا ليتك معي، فالشوق إليك كوردة من شوك.

Quanto vorrei che tu fossi qui con me. La nostalgia di te è una rosa di spine. (tr. Barbara Teresi, 2021)”
― Ibtisam Azem, The Book of Disappearance

“Cities are stories and I only remember what I
myself lived, or fragments from your stories and what you lived, but they are truncated. I remember their stories very well. The ones I learned in school, heard on TV, and read and wrote in order to pass exams. I had to tell their stories to pass in school and college. That’s why I remember them like I remember my ID number. I know it by heart and can recite it any minute. I memorised their stories and their white dreams
about this place so as to pass exams. But I carved my stories, yours, and those of others who are like us, inside me. We inherit memory the way we inherit the colour of our eyes and skin. We inherit the sound of laughter just as we inherit the sound of tears. Your memory pains me.”
― Ibtisam Azem, The Book of Disappearance