The Daily Glance
Amal Al-Jubouri's Hagar Before the Occupation/Hagar after the Occupation (trans. Rebecca Gayle Howell with Husam Qaisi) presents the reaction of an Iraqi poet to what has happened with the war. She presents the problems of life under a dictator, but she also examines the problems that the occupation has created. Take, for example, a few lines from "Men After the Occupation:"
Who are the real men?
No one knows
Disguises lauding
the demise of manhood
A circus
wild with masks.
Al-Jubouri does not stray from talking about the problems caused by the overthrow of Sadam, just like she does not stray from discussing what it was like beforehand. Still, she doesn't really offer any solutions; she documents. In this way, she reminds me of Akhmatova in "Requiem." Her witnessing, through exile, is a way to open for us what has changed, has happened in her native space.
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