From Ahdaf Soueif, Sandpiper (1997, Bloomsbury):

From Ahdaf Soueif, Sandpiper (1997, Bloomsbury): Now, when I walk to the sea, to the edge of thiscontinentwhere I live, where I almostdied, where I wait for mydaughter to growaway from me, I seedifferentthings from those I sawthatsummersixyears ago. The last of the foamisswallowedbubblinginto the sand, to sink down and rejoin the seaat an invisiblesubterraneanlevel. With eachebb of green water the sandloses part of itself to the sea, with each flow another part isflung back to be reclaimed once again by the beach.

Thatnarrow stretch of sandknowsnothing in the world betterthanitdoes the whitewavesthatwhipit, caressit, collapseintoit, vanishintoit. The whitefoamknowsnothingbetterthanthosesandswhichwait for it, rise to it and suckit in. Butwhat do the wavesknow of the massed, hot, stillsands of the desert just twenty, no, tenfeetbeyond the scallopededge? And whatdoes the beach know of the depths, the cold, the currents just there, there – do youseeit? – where the water turns a deeper blue. (Soueif, Sandpiper, p. 36)

From Iain Chambers, Mediterranean Crossings (2008, Duke University Press): The Mediterranean becomes the sight for an experiment in a different form of history writing; an experiment in language and representation where it becomes possible to engage with the ‘outside of the history of modernity’ through points of resistance and refusal that continually relay us elsewhere, and lead to an inevitable ‘questioning of history as status quo.

From Iain Chambers, Minority Mediterraneans, (2013): If the Mediterraneanisoverwhelminglyclaimedas the site of the ‘origins’ of Western culture, at the same time thereis an increasingreluctance to be associated with itspresent‐dayrealities. Somehow, in order to be modern the existingMediterraneanhas to be repudiated. Sun‐litsloth, civicchaos and corruption, represent the distastefulunder‐belly of a heritagethat the incisive management of modernitynorth of the Alps and along the Atlantic shorehasapparentlyovercome. Reduced to the leisurely pace of a time‐out in which to entertain the senses with food, wine, sea, sun and antiquatedcultures, the rationality of modernityisapparentlyexercisedelsewhere.

However, ifthisis the repressed side of Occidentalmodernityit can neverreally be keptat a distance; itisalwaysdestined to return and disturb the procedures of a purifiedrationality. So, apart from signalling a banalescape to pleasure, the Mediterraneanas a repressedalteritywithinmodernity can also be re‐routedinto a further, and altogether more disturbing, groove. As a line of flightintoanotherunauthorisedcriticalspace, the present and pasthistories of the Mediterranean propose a radical revaluation of the veryprocesses and powersthathave led to itscontemporarysubordination, marginalisation and definition. Ratherthansimplyclinging to some purportedauthenticitybeingthreatened by modernity, therelies the altogether more complexissue of the latterbeingworked out, lived and proposed in transit and translation. (Chambers, MinorityMediterraneans)

From Laila Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005, Harvest): Fourteen kilometers. Murad has pondered that number hundreds of times in the last year, trying to decide whether the risk was worth it. Some days he told himself that the distance was nothing, a brief inconvenience, that the crossing would take as little as thirty minutes if the weather was good. He spent hours thinking about what he would do once he was on the other side, imagining the job, the car, the house. Other days he could think only about the coast guards, the ice-cold water, the money he’d have to borrow, and he wondered how fourteen kilometers could separate not just two countries but two universes. (p. 1)

From Laila Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005, Harvest): He looks at the Spanish coastline, closer with every breath. The waves are inky black, except for hints of foam here and there, glistening white under the moon, like tombstones in a dark cemetery. Murad can make out the town where they’re headed. Tarifa. The mainland point of the Moorish invasion in 711. Murad used to regale tourists with anecdotes about how Tariq IbnZiyad had led a powerful Moor army across the Straits and, upon landing in Gibraltar, ordered all the boats burned. He’d told his soldiers that they could march forth and defeat the enemy or turn back and die a coward’s death.

The men had followed their general, topped the Visigoths, and established an empire that ruled over Spain for more than seven hundred years. Little did they know that we’d be back, Murad thinks. Only instead of a fleet, here we are in an inflatable boat – not just Moors, but a motley mix of people from the ex-colonies, without guns or armor, without a charismatic leader. (Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, pp. 2-3)

From Iain Chambers, Meritime Criticism (2010, in Insights): Insisting on the centrality of the sea and ocean space to the enterprise of modernity promotes the adoption of a more fluid cartography. The presumed stability of the historical archive, together with its associated ‘facts,’ and the cultural identifications proposed in territorial museums, academic syllabuses and political understandings, can all be set to float: susceptible to drift, unplanned contacts, even shipwreck. (pp. 2-3)

From Ahdaf Soueif, In the Eye of the Sun, (1992, Bloomsbury): Youcannotdisclaimresponsibility for myexistence, nor for mybeinghere – besideyourriver – today. But I haven’t come to youonly to take, I haven’t come to youempty-handed: I bringyoupoetryasgreatasyoursbut in anothertongue, I bringyoublackeyes and goldenskin and curlyhair, I bringyou Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silkrugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways... [...] Or isitnotridiculous? Ridiculous and naive.

Isit a sinister, insidiouscolonialismimplanted in hervery soul; a form of colonialismthat no rebellion can mitigate and no treatybring to an end? Whatwouldhappen to herif – as in 1956 – the oldlionshookhimselfawake, growled, and stretched a paw – itsclawsold and yellowbutstillsharp – towardsEgypt, Syria, or Iraq, or anyotherArab country? How wouldshefeelthen standing hereamonghistrappings? Asya turnsagain to the Thames. A riveris a riveris a river: water and fish – no, probablynotfish, itlooksprettydirty – what, then? Bodies. (Soueif, In the Eye of the Sun, p. 512)

From Pauline Kaldas, “Home” (in The Poetry of Arab Women, ed. by N. Handal, 2005, Interlink): Home The world map colored yellow and green draws a straight line from Massachussetts to Egypt.

Homesick for the streets filthy with the litter of people, overfilled so you must look to put your next step down; bare feet and galabiyas pinch you into a spot tighter than a net full of fish, drivers bound out of their hit cars to battle in the streets and cause a jam as mysterious as the building of the pyramids...

sweetshops display their baklava and basboosa glistening with syrup browned like the people who make them, women, hair and hands henna red their eyes, khol-lined and daring. (Kaldas, “Home”)

From Nathalie Handal, “Amrika”(in The Lives of Rain, 2005, Intelink) New England quiet echoes raindrops autumn leaves an alley of tiny butterflies the difference between where we are from and where we now live. The years behind a broken door My father’s grief – I understand nothing – Only later do I hear the Arabic in his footsteps...

I walk through Fenway Park, through streets with names that escape me, their stories of sea their cries for a stranger’s grief. I understand – no one can bear partings... (Handal, Lives of Rain, pp. 60-61)

I wear my jeans, tennis shoes, walk Broadway, pass Columbia, read Said and Twain, wonder why we are obsessed with difference, our need to change the other? I wait for the noise to stop but it never does so I go to the tip of the Hudson River recite a verse by IbnArabi and between subway rides, to that place that I now call home, listen to Abdel Halim and Nina Simone

hunt for the small things I have lost inside of myself – and at the corner of Bleeker and Mercer through a window with faded Arabic letters see a New York debke... It is later than it was a while ago and I haven’t moved a bit, my voices still breaking into tiny pieces when I introduce myself to someone new and imagine I have found my way home. (Handal, Lives of Rain, p. 64)

From Etel Adnan, The Indian Never Had a Horse (1985): from the persistent Mediterranean to the persistent Pacific we cut roads with our feet share baggage and food running always one second ahead of the running of Time (p. 65)

From Mohja Kahf, “Hijab Scene #5” (E-mails from Scheherazade, 2003, University Press of Florida): “Assalam-O-alaikum, sister” “Assalam-O-alaikum, ma’am” “Assalam-O-alaikum” at the mailbox “Assalam-O-alaikum” by the bus stop Whenyou’rewearinghijab, Black men youdon’tevenknowmaterialize all over Hub City like an army of chivalry, opening doors, springing intogallantry. Drop the scarf, and (ifyou’re light) yousuddenly pass (lonely) for white.

From Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin (2010, Bloomsbury): Feelings of inadequacy marked my first months in America. I floundered in that open-minded world, trying to fit in. But my foreignness showed in my brown skin and accent. Statelessness clung to me like a bad perfume and the airplane highjackings of the seventies trailed my Arabic surname. (p. 169)

The divide could not have been greater, nor could it be bridged. That's how it was. Palestine would just rise up from my bones into the center of my new life, unannounced. In class, at a bar, strolling through the city. Without warning, the weeping willows of Rittenhouse Square would turn into Jenin's fig trees reaching down to offer me their fruit. It was a persistent pull, living in the cells of my body, calling me to myself. Then it would slouch back into latency. (Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin, p. 175)

From Suheir Hammad, “argela remebrance” (Born Palestinian, Born Black, 2010, UpSet): we read futures in search of our past in coffee grinds and tea leaves in upturned hands grasping for prayer

we are a people name our sons after prophets daughters after midwifes eat with upturned hands plant plastic potted plants in suffocating apartments tiny brooklyn style in memory of the soil once laid under our nails. (Hammad, “argelaremembrance”, p. 37)

From Laila Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits: After leaving Café La Liberté, Murad headed back toward the beach. He found a spot near the Casbah where he could get a view of the Mediterranean. It was getting dark. In the distance, car lights from the Spanish side looked like so many tiny lighthouses, beacons that warned visitors to keep out. He thought about the work visas he’d asked for. For the last several years, the quotas had filled quickly and he’d been turned down.

He knew, in his heart, that if only he could get a job, he would make it, he would be successful, like his sister was today, like his younger brothers would be someday. His mother wouldn’t dream of discounting his opinion the way she did. And Spain was so close, just across the Straits. (Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, p. 108)

From Sarat Maharaj, “Perfidious Fidelity” (1994): In everyday terms, we see translation as the business of imperceptibly passing through from one language to another, not unlike stacking panes of glass one on top of another, a matter of sheer transparency. But is it no less about taking the measure of the untranslatable, about groping along and clawing at dividing walls, about floundering in an opaque stickiness? (p. 28)

From Ahdaf Soueif, Sandpiper (1997, Bloomsbury):