Within the Devastated Debris of an Apartment Block, I Saw a Book I Had Translated

Among the debris of a fallen building, a solitary sight lingered with me: a tome I had converted from English to Farsi, resting partially covered in dust and soot. Its front was torn and smudged, its sheets bent and scorched, but it was still legible. Still communicating.

A Metropolis Amid Attack

Two days before, missiles commenced attacking the city. There were no sirens, just unexpected, forceful explosions. The internet was completely disconnected. I was in my flat, translating a book about what it means to transport text across tongues, and the morals and anxieties of inhabiting a different voice. As structures fell, I sat revising a text that suggested, in its understated way, for the persistence of purpose.

Everything ceased. A manuscript my publishing house had been about to send to press was stranded when the printer ceased operations. Retailers shut one by one. One night, when the booms were too nearby, my family and I rushed down the stairs toward the basement. I couldn’t stop thinking about the shelves in my apartment, stocked with reference books, rare editions I had spent years gathering and every book I had ever worked on. That library was my life's work, and I didn’t know if I, or it, would make it through the night.

Distance and Devastation

My companion left with her parents for what they thought would be more secure locations – places that, days later, were also hit. My daughter departed to stay in another city. As her train was leaving, she sent me a image: in the faraway, a factory was ablaze, dark smoke coiling into the sky. People closest to me were suddenly far away, and threat seemed to chase them.

During those days, feelings swept through the city like a storm: instant terror, unease, moral outrage at the wrong, then detachment. Beyond the psychological cost, the attack dismantled my ability to work. Without power and the internet, I had no access to the quick searches and references that the craft demands.

Outside, shockwaves blew windows from their sashes; at a family member's house, every sheet of glass was broken, the possessions lay ruined, household items scattered throughout the rooms. When I visited, a woman sat before the wreckage, creating at an stand, choosing not to let silence and dust have the ultimate victory.

Converting Grief

A image was shared online of a 23-year-old writer who was died when missiles struck a building. Her writing went viral next to her image. On a street where I once bought reference materials, I saw an elderly woman running between alleys, calling a name. Locals said she had mourned a son in a conflict over 30 years ago, and now, the bombs had awakened some repressed memory. She was searching for a child who would never come home.

We were all converting, in our own way: changing ruin into image, demise into lines, grief into search.

The Craft as Persistence

A week after the attacks began, still amidst ruin, I found myself rendering a story for young readers about a king whose daughter will recover only if she can grasp the moon. Though written for children, it carried significant meaning for me then. The author, who experienced the loss of his sight yet persisted producing until the end of his life, understood something about aiming at the unattainable. I wondered if the moon was the calm we all yearned for – seemingly out of reach, yet still worth pursuing.

During those nights, I understood translation as something more than literary craft: it was an act of perseverance, of staying put, of enduring.

One day, in bright sunlight, blasts hit a detention center; in those same hours, I was translating passages about a philosopher in his confinement, asking for more resources, insisting that language study become his “predominant activity”. For him, translation was – as the author puts it – “a truth, hope, rigor, anchor, and analogy” all at once.

An Enduring Voice

And then came the picture. I saw it on a website and saw that, amid the ruins of another apartment block, lay one of my old works, damaged but intact, my name displayed on the cover. The image was in color, but it might as well have been devoid of color, devoid of life among the concrete and debris. For most of my career, I had been unseen, as all translators are. But here was my work made seen – scarred, but persisting.

I stared at the image for a long time. The author writes that “all translation is a political act”, but I had never felt the full weight of this until then. To translate, even under bombardment, was to say: “this voice mattered”. It will not be obliterated. To translate is not just to haul stories across languages, but to help them persist when everything else disappears. It is a persistent, determined refusal to be silenced.