"I haven’t sinned enough"

Poetry is the literary genre par exellence in the Arab world. Born in pre-Islamic times, Arabic poetry has undergone a great evolution. The revolutionary was an Iraqi woman, Nazik al-Mala’ika, who was the first to go against the norm and break the literary rules of her time. The quest for liberty and the desire to exceed the limits imposed by tradition are the common threads uniting the 36 lyrical voices in this anthology. The challenges of everyday life, combined with their thoughts on war, love, and the frustrations as an existentialist woman are what these Arab women express through prose. From Morocco, to Iraq, Syria and Yemen, the work of these 36 poets, selected and translated by Valentina Colombo, create an anthem to life and passion.