Source: ArabLit Quarterly

Hunger That Defeats Language

I fear hunger more than death, for it takes you in slow, devouring waves until you become a disintegrating shadow, unable even to scream.

Will anyone read this?

Will anyone believe that a writer could no longer write because he had nothing to eat?

Will anyone care that, in a corner of the world, people are starving so completely that their souls are silenced?

Perhaps not.

But I wrote this – despite everything.

To say that writing is possible.

Only if the body is allowed to survive.

By Husam Maarouf