Amid the Ruined Remains of an Apartment Block, I Saw a Volume I Had Translated

Within the wreckage of a fallen apartment block, a particular image lingered with me: a tome I had converted from English to Persian, sitting half-buried in dirt and soot. Its cover was shredded and stained, its leaves curled and scorched, but it was still readable. Still speaking.

A City Amid Assault

Two days before, projectiles started hitting the city. There were no alarms, just abrupt, powerful explosions. The web was entirely severed. I was in my flat, working on a book about what it means to move words across languages, and the morals and anxieties of taking on another’s perspective. As structures came down, I sat editing a text that suggested, in its quiet way, for the endurance of significance.

Everything ceased. A book my publishing house had been about to publish was stuck when the printer closed. Retailers closed one by one. One night, when the explosions were too close, my family and I ran down the stairs toward the basement. I couldn’t stop worrying about the shelves in my apartment, filled with lexicons, valuable editions I had spent years accumulating and every book I had ever translated. That collection was my lifework, and I didn’t know if I, or it, would endure the night.

Distance and Devastation

My companion left with her parents for what they thought would be safer towns – places that, days later, were also hit. My daughter departed to stay in another city. As her train was pulling out, she sent me a image: in the distance, a plant was burning, thick smoke spiraling into the sky. People nearest me were suddenly elsewhere, and peril seemed to pursue them.

During those days, emotions passed over the city like a front: instant dread, unease, righteous anger at the wrong, then detachment. Beyond the psychological cost, the bombardment eradicated my ability to work. Without power and the internet, I had no access to the instant searches and sources that translation demands.

Outside, shockwaves blew windows from their casings; at a cousin's house, every sheet of glass was broken, the belongings lay damaged, personal effects spread throughout the rooms. When I visited, a woman sat before the wreckage, painting at an stand, refusing to let stillness and dirt have the last word.

Converting Pain

A image was shared digitally of a 23-year-old writer who was killed when missiles struck a building. Her writing went spread rapidly next to her image. On a street where I once bought books, I saw an aged woman running between alleys, shouting a name. Neighbours said she had mourned a son in a war over 30 years ago, and now, the bombs had awakened some buried recollection. She was seeking a child who would never come home.

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

Translation as Resistance

A week after the attacks began, still amidst devastation, I found myself rendering a children’s tale about a king whose daughter will heal only if she can possess the moon. Though written for children, it carried significant meaning for me then. The author, who experienced the loss of his sight yet kept producing until the end of his life, understood something about striving for the impossible. I wondered if the moon was the calm we all yearned for – seemingly unattainable, 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 holding on.

One day, in broad sunlight, blasts hit a prison; in those same hours, I was translating passages about a philosopher in his cell, asking for more resources, insisting that language study become his “main activity”. For him, translation was – as the author puts it – “a reality, goal, discipline, anchor, and metaphor” all at once.

A Marked Legacy

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

I gazed upon the image for a long time. The author writes that “all translation is a statement”, but I had never felt the full weight of this until then. To translate, even under bombardment, was to say: “this voice was important”. It will not be forgotten. To translate is not just to transport stories across languages, but to help them remain when everything else crumbles. It is a persistent, stubborn rejection to vanish.