Amid the Ruined Debris of an Residential Building, I Saw a Book I Had Translated

Within the rubble of a fallen building, a single sight remained with me: a book I had translated from English to Persian, resting partly concealed in dirt and ash. Its jacket was torn and stained, its leaves bent and burned, but it was still readable. Still uttering words.

A Metropolis Under Attack

Two days before, rockets started hitting the city. There were no warnings, just abrupt, violent blasts. The digital network was completely cut off. I was in my apartment, translating a text about what it means to move words across cultures, and the principles and anxieties of inhabiting a different voice. As edifices collapsed, I sat polishing a text that contended, in its understated way, for the lasting nature of purpose.

Everything stopped. A project my publisher had been about to publish was stranded when the printer shut down. Bookstores closed one by one. One night, when the booms were too close, my family and I rushed down the stairs toward the basement. I couldn’t stop worrying about the bookshelves in my apartment, filled with lexicons, valuable editions I had spent years gathering and every book I had ever translated. That archive was my career's work, and I didn’t know if I, or it, would endure the night.

Distance and Devastation

My partner left with her parents for what they thought would be more secure areas – places that, days later, were also targeted. My daughter travelled to stay in another city. As her train was departing, she sent me a picture: in the distance, a industrial site was ablaze, black smoke curling into the sky. People nearest me were suddenly somewhere else, and threat seemed to chase them.

During those days, emotions swept through the city like weather: swift fear, apprehension, indignation at the injustice, then apathy. Beyond the psychological cost, the shelling destroyed my ability to work. Without power and the internet, I had no access to the instant queries and references that the work demands.

Outside, blast waves tore windows from their casings; at a relative's house, every sheet of glass was shattered, the belongings lay damaged, household items spread throughout the rooms. When I visited, a woman sat before the destruction, painting at an easel, declining to let quiet and debris have the final say.

Translating Grief

A photograph was shared on social media of a 23-year-old poet who was lost when missiles struck a building. Her poem went viral alongside her image. On a street where I once bought reference materials, I saw an older woman running between alleyways, calling a name. Locals said she had lost a son in a war over 30 years ago, and now, the bombs had stirred some deep-seated remembrance. She was seeking a child who would never come home.

We were all converting, in our own way: turning destruction into picture, demise into lines, sorrow into quest.

Translation as Persistence

A week after the attacks began, still amidst ruin, I found myself rendering a fable about a king whose daughter will heal only if she can grasp the moon. Though written for children, it carried profound meaning for me then. The author, who experienced the loss of his sight yet continued working until the end of his life, understood something about reaching for the unattainable. I wondered if the moon was the tranquility we all desired – seemingly impossible, yet still worth striving for.

During those nights, I understood translation as something greater than an art form: it was an act of resistance, of staying put, of persisting.

One day, in full sunlight, blasts hit a prison; in those same hours, I was translating passages about a philosopher in his confinement, asking for more dictionaries, insisting that linguistic work become his “predominant activity”. For him, translation was – as the author puts it – “a fact, goal, practice, anchor, and metaphor” all at once.

A Marked Legacy

And then came the photograph. I noticed it on a website and saw that, among the ruins of another apartment block, lay one of my old translations, marked but whole, my name printed on the cover. The image was in colour, but it might as well have been black and white, devoid of life among the debris and ruins. For most of my career, I had been unseen, as all translators are. But here was my work made apparent – scarred, but enduring.

I gazed upon the image for a long time. The author writes that “all translation is a act with consequences”, but I had never felt the full weight of this until then. To translate, even under bombardment, was to say: “this voice had significance”. It will not be obliterated. To translate is not just to carry stories across languages, but to help them endure when everything else disappears. It is a quiet, determined refusal to be silenced.