Je te menace d’une colombe blanche

Syria, 1984. A book featuring three poets revealed to the public the talent of a very young woman whose writings would soon set the Arab world ablaze. Indeed, the poems collected in Je te menace d’une colombe blanche by Maram al-Masri possess the freshness of April mornings, the quivering innocence of sensuality, and the joyful transparency of youthful love. But a shadow looms over them—that of first wounds, betrayals, separation, and exile, which still keeps Maram far from her homeland today. There are few images in this poetry—whose beauty has been praised by Adonis and great French poets—but rather the clear, flowing calligraphy of the emotions of a woman who comes to us as an “inhabitant of the Earth.” Time has passed, but her poems remain, bearing witness to a Syria that still dreams of regaining its former freedom.