Amid the Bombed-Out Debris of an Residential Building, I Found a Volume I’d Translated

Among the rubble of a fallen structure, a single sight lingered with me: a book I had converted from the English language to Persian, lying partly concealed in dirt and soot. Its cover was torn and smudged, its leaves curled and scorched, but it was still legible. Still communicating.

A City Under Bombardment

Two days earlier, projectiles began striking the city. There were no sirens, just unexpected, forceful detonations. The digital network was entirely disconnected. I was in my apartment, rendering a text about what it means to transport text across languages, and the morals and worries of taking on another’s voice. As buildings collapsed, I sat editing a text that argued, in its understated way, for the lasting nature of significance.

Everything halted. A project my publisher had been about to send to press was stranded when the printer closed. Retailers shut one by one. One night, when the blasts were too nearby, my family and I ran down the stairs toward the basement. I couldn’t stop thinking about the bookshelves in my apartment, filled with dictionaries, rare editions I had spent years collecting and every book I had ever worked on. That archive was my lifework, and I didn’t know if I, or it, would survive the night.

Separation and Devastation

My partner left with her parents for what they thought would be more secure locations – places that, days later, were also targeted. My daughter departed to stay in another city. As her train was leaving, she sent me a photo: in the distance, a plant was ablaze, thick smoke spiraling into the sky. People closest to me were suddenly elsewhere, and peril seemed to chase them.

During those days, emotions swept through the city like a front: instant fear, apprehension, righteous anger at the injustice, then apathy. Beyond the personal impact, the attack eradicated my ability to work. Without power and the internet, I had no access to the instant queries and sources that translation demands.

Outside, concussive forces ripped windows from their casings; at a cousin's house, every pane was shattered, the possessions lay broken, household items scattered throughout the rooms. When I visited, a woman sat before the destruction, creating at an easel, declining to let silence and dirt have the final say.

Transforming Sorrow

A picture spread on social media of a young poet who was died when missiles struck a building. Her verse went viral alongside her image. On a street where I once bought dictionaries, I saw an older woman running between alleyways, shouting a name. Locals said she had lost a son in a war over 30 years ago, and now, the bombs had awakened some buried memory. She was searching for a child who would never come home.

We were all translating, in our own way: transforming destruction into image, loss into lines, mourning into longing.

The Work as Resistance

A week after the attacks began, still amidst destruction, I found myself rendering a children’s tale about a king whose daughter will recover only if she can possess the moon. Though written for children, it carried significant meaning for me then. The author, who lost his sight yet continued creating until the end of his life, understood something about reaching for the impossible. I wondered if the moon was the calm we all longed for – seemingly impossible, yet still worth pursuing.

During those nights, I understood translation as something greater than an art form: it was an act of perseverance, of holding one's ground, of holding on.

One day, in full sunlight, blasts hit a facility; in those same hours, I was translating passages about a philosopher in his prison cell, asking for more resources, insisting that linguistic work become his “main activity”. For him, translation was – as the author puts it – “a reality, goal, practice, support, and symbol” all at once.

A Scarred Legacy

And then came the picture. I saw 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 shown on the cover. The image was in color, but it might as well have been black and white, drained 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 apparent – scarred, but persisting.

I looked at the image for a long time. The author writes that “all translation is a act with consequences”, but I had never felt the true gravity of this until then. To translate, even under fire, was to say: “this voice had significance”. It will not be forgotten. To translate is not just to carry stories across languages, but to help them persist when everything else disappears. It is a persistent, unyielding rejection to disappear.