Where Not to Be Born

Safaa Fathy was born in Egypt. She is a poet, essay writer, and filmmaker. She is the author of Al Haschische (Pamenar Press, 2023), an experimental book of poems. Her plays Terror and Ordeal (Lansman, 2004) were prefaced by Jacques Derrida, with whom she signed the book Tourner les mots (partly translated into English by Max Cavitch, University of Pennsylvania). Her book of poetry, Revolution Goes Through Walls (SplitLevel Texts), was first published in Egypt, then in France and Brazil. She also experiments with the visual texture of poems in filmic forms. She participated in the 47th Annual Poetry Project Marathon with a short piece entitled "I Would Like to Say." Safaa Fathy's Name to the Sea, a film-poem structured within a still frame, is being published along with the text in seven languages (Vanilla planifolia, Mexico City). She has been writing a novel in English for the past five years.

"Vibrating with rich imagery rooted in Fathy's long experience in film, this is a distinctly urban poetry that demands accountability while also offering compassion rooted in deep listening-to the body, to history, to others-and to the ongoing conversation that is the attentive life. The I and the you at the heart of this collection continually shift and overflow to encompass a vigorous humanity. A riveting work that gives English readers new access to this important voice in contemporary Arabic poetry in all its great range. - Cole Swensen It is refreshing to witness the publication of Where Not to Be Born, a bilingual edition that not only reaffirms Rawad Wehbe's expertise in translation but also offers Arabic readers the opportunity to embrace the potent sonic resonance of Safaa Fathy's elegant and enigmatic constellated images-an alchemical transformation of song, pain, and imagery into polyvalent poetry. This collection encapsulates Safaa Fathy's cinematographic and philosophical renderings, while tenderly celebrating humanity's capacity for revolt. She navigates the currents of language, swimming through depths while also fiercely resisting its constraints: "Perhaps I might speak in another language so as not to put names onto things, things that rotate around the axis of their names." - Ghazal Mosadeq"