The War of Memory

Sania Saleh was a Syrian poet born in 1935 in the city of Musayaf in the province of Hama, author of three collections of poetry and one of short stories, as well as a posthumously published Collected Poems. She studied at Damascus University, and married the poet Mohammed al-Maghout, whom she met through poet Adonis in Beirut, himself married to her sister, Khalida Saïd. They had two daughters. Sania Saleh died of cancer in Paris in 1986. The Egyptian poet Iman Mersal has an essay on her work that can be read online here.

Marilyn Hacker is the author of fourteen books of poems, including Blazons (2019) and A Stranger’s Mirror (2015), a collaborative book, Diaspo/Renga, written with Deema K. Shehabi (2014) and an essay collection, Unauthorized Voices (2010). Her translations of French and Francophone poets include Samira Negrouche’s The Olive Trees’ Jazz (2020) and Claire Malroux’s Daybreak (2020). A Different Distance, a collaboration with Karthika Naïr, will be published in December 2021.