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Like
sisters in a nunnery you congregate
In subdued
tones you converse while you sway
Gentle is the movement, contentment is the mood
I want to take refuge in your
precincts
I want to stay
away from a world that shocks and hurts
For though you are in the world your serenity
pervades
Like disciplined sentinels you stand
Watching the
ever changing canvas of the skies
While the
birds are busy with home-making
In
your tender welcoming branches
And when they sing, your motherly love
overflows
With tense emotion you clap and sway
The birds had roosted, their heads lowered
down
The evening approaches exhibiting its
drama
Of
violet, pink and a fiery red sun
Then you would converse with the stars
Would this be your treasured time?
As the dawn breaks, you are the wiser.
BIOGRAPHY
NAJWA
FARAH
Najwa K. Farah is a Palestinian writer, who has been contributing to
Palestinian and Arabic
literature for several
decades. The bulk of her publications are short stories, novels and
poems. Farah was born in
Nazareth and lived in Haifa until 1965, and then in two West
Bank cities, namely,
Jerusalem and Ramallah. Farah also lived in Lebanon, the UK and
presently resides in
Canada. Farah’s life experiences in Palestine and the Middle East,
provided her with the
political, historical and socio-cultural milieu from which she draws
and develops her
characters. Most of her protagonists are Palestinians, mainly
‘ordinary’
people, or le petit
peuple, especially refugees uprooted from their homes and
Homeland,
who seek answers to
their individual and collective historical predicament. Many of
these
protagonists are
resilient women, who in addition to their political oppression
encounter
social discrimination.
Her stories and novels come in eleven collections in Arabic. A
number of these have
been translated into English by Christians Aware based in London,
UK. Najwa also published
a collection of poetic prose and two plays for theatre, titled The
Secret of Shahrazad,
and The Way of the Cross. Moreover, Farah published two
children‘s
books, one of which is
based on Arabic Folk tales. Her latest book titled A Continent
called Palestine
published by the SPCK in London-UK, is her life story, which
received
excellent reviews
in a number of journals and newspapers.
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