Amid those Devastated Remains of an Residential Building, I Found a Book I’d Translated

Among the debris of a fallen structure, a single image lingered with me: a book I had rendered from the English language to Farsi, resting partially covered in dirt and soot. Its cover was shredded and stained, its leaves curled and burned, but it was still decipherable. Still uttering words.

A Metropolis Under Attack

Two days prior, missiles started hitting the city. There were no sirens, just sudden, violent detonations. The internet was entirely cut off. I was in my flat, translating a text about what it means to transport words across tongues, and the principles and concerns of inhabiting a different voice. As structures fell, I sat editing a text that suggested, in its understated way, for the endurance of significance.

Everything stopped. A manuscript my publisher had been about to publish was stuck when the printing house shut down. Shops locked their doors one by one. One night, when the booms were too nearby, my family and I hurried down the stairs toward the shelter. I couldn’t stop worrying about the bookshelves in my apartment, holding reference books, valuable volumes I had spent years gathering and every book I had ever translated. That archive was my career's work, and I didn’t know if I, or it, would make it through the night.

Separation and Devastation

My spouse left with her parents for what they thought would be safer areas – places that, days later, were also targeted. My daughter departed to stay in another city. As her train was pulling out, she sent me a photo: in the distance, a industrial site was on fire, black smoke curling into the sky. People nearest me were suddenly far away, and peril seemed to chase them.

During those days, feelings moved through the city like weather: sudden fear, apprehension, indignation at the unfairness, then detachment. Beyond the personal impact, the attack eradicated my ability to work. Without power and the internet, I had no access to the quick queries and materials that the work demands.

Outside, concussive forces ripped windows from their frames; at a cousin's house, every sheet of glass was broken, the furniture lay ruined, objects spread throughout the rooms. When I visited, a woman sat before the destruction, painting at an stand, choosing not to let quiet and dirt have the final say.

Converting Sorrow

A photograph was shared digitally of a young poet who was died when missiles struck a building. Her poem went viral alongside her image. On a street where I once bought books, I saw an older woman hurrying between alleyways, yelling a name. Locals said she had mourned a son in a conflict over 30 years ago, and now, the bombs had triggered some buried remembrance. She was searching for a child who would never come home.

We were all translating, in our own way: changing devastation into art, loss into lines, grief into longing.

The Craft as Defiance

A week after the attacks began, still surrounded by devastation, I found myself rendering a fable about a king whose daughter will get better only if she can grasp the moon. Though written for children, it carried deep 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 unattainable. I wondered if the moon was the peace we all longed for – seemingly out of reach, yet still worth reaching toward.

During those nights, I understood translation as something greater than a skill: it was an act of perseverance, of remaining, of persisting.

One day, in bright 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 “predominant activity”. For him, translation was – as the author puts it – “a reality, hope, practice, anchor, and symbol” all at once.

An Enduring Legacy

And then came the photograph. I spotted it on a news site and saw that, within the ruins of another apartment block, lay one of my old works, scarred but surviving, 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 apparent – scarred, but surviving.

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 full weight of this until then. To translate, even under bombardment, was to say: “this voice was important”. 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 quiet, determined declination to be silenced.