Yasmeen Hanoosh is an Iraqi-born literary translator and Assistant Professor of Arabic language and literature at Portland State University. Her translations have appeared in various literary journals and publications, including Banipal and the Iowa Review. Her translation of the Iraqi novel Scattered Crumbs(al-Ramli) won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Prize in 2002, and has been excerpted in Literature from the Axis of Evil: Writing from Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Other Enemy Nations (2006). Her translation of Luay Hamza Abbas’s collection of short stories, Closing His Eyes, received the NEA translation prize in 2010.
Zainab. Zaina-a-a-a-b. Zainab. Is it really you catching me in this muffled moment? No, you have not changed. But where is your body? You approach with your usual smile, seductive as ever…