The Abduction

A deeply moving true story, beautifully translated.......more

How like the love of the Creator, for those created, is the love of a mother for her child. A mother’s love is a yearning for what is her very self, yet other. When she herself is taken from that part of herself, there can be no rest, until reunion. Maram Al-Masri eloquently delineates this most po......more

The Abduction was an extreme surprise to me- its premise and tale, the husband's abduction of a young child from his mother, her loss and longing and her reuniting 13 years later and again much later when he is a struggling adult seemed "heavy" but the poems are so simple, straightforward and readab......more

The Abduction lodges within; it haunts and demands attention, and I'm grateful for Hélène Cardona's beautiful work bringing it into English.......more

Hélène Cardona’s masterful translation of The Abduction by French-Syrian poet Maram Al-Masri contains luminescent pages where readers will traverse tidal currents of raw emotion, passionate love, and the sting of separation. Unfurled through motifs of motherhood, nascent innocence, the ache of parti......more