Within those Ruined Debris of an Apartment Block, I Saw a Volume I’d Translated

Among the debris of a collapsed building, a solitary image remained with me: a volume I had translated from English to Farsi, lying partially covered in dirt and ash. Its cover was torn and stained, its leaves bent and singed, but it was still readable. Still speaking.

A Metropolis Amid Bombardment

Two days earlier, missiles commenced attacking the city. There were no alarms, just abrupt, powerful explosions. The web was completely disconnected. I was in my apartment, rendering a work about what it means to move words across languages, and the principles and concerns of inhabiting another’s perspective. As edifices collapsed, I sat editing a text that contended, in its quiet way, for the endurance of meaning.

Everything ceased. A book my publishing house had been about to go to print was stranded when the printer ceased operations. Shops locked their doors one by one. One night, when the blasts were too close, my family and I rushed down the stairs toward the cellar. I couldn’t stop dwelling on the bookshelves in my apartment, filled with reference books, rare books I had spent years accumulating and every book I had ever worked on. That library was my lifework, and I didn’t know if I, or it, would make it through the night.

Dispersal and Devastation

My partner left with her parents for what they thought would be less dangerous towns – places that, days later, were also hit. My daughter travelled to stay in another city. As her train was leaving, she sent me a photo: in the background, a factory was burning, thick smoke coiling into the sky. People closest to me were suddenly somewhere else, and threat seemed to chase them.

During those days, moods moved through the city like a storm: swift terror, apprehension, indignation at the injustice, then apathy. Beyond the psychological cost, the attack eradicated my ability to work. Without power and the internet, I had no access to the instant searches and materials that the craft demands.

Outside, shockwaves blew windows from their casings; at a family member's house, every sheet of glass was broken, the belongings lay broken, personal effects spread throughout the rooms. When I visited, a woman sat before the wreckage, creating at an stand, choosing not to let quiet and debris have the final say.

Converting Grief

A picture was shared digitally of a young writer who was killed when missiles struck a building. Her verse went viral alongside her image. On a street where I once bought reference materials, I saw an older woman running between passages, calling a name. Locals said she had lost a son in a war over 30 years ago, and now, the bombs had stirred some repressed memory. She was seeking a child who would never come home.

We were all converting, in our own way: transforming devastation into picture, demise into lines, grief into longing.

The Work as Defiance

A week after the attacks began, still surrounded by devastation, I found myself rendering a story for young readers about a king whose daughter will get better only if she can possess the moon. Though written for children, it carried significant meaning for me then. The author, who experienced the loss of his sight yet persisted creating until the end of his life, understood something about striving for the impossible. I wondered if the moon was the calm we all desired – seemingly unattainable, yet still worth pursuing.

During those nights, I understood translation as something more than literary craft: it was an act of defiance, of holding one's ground, of holding on.

One day, in broad sunlight, blasts hit a facility; in those same hours, I was translating passages about a philosopher in his prison cell, asking for more dictionaries, insisting that linguistic work become his “main activity”. For him, translation was – as the author puts it – “a fact, aspiration, rigor, anchor, and symbol” all at once.

A Scarred Voice

And then came the image. I saw it on a platform and saw that, amid the ruins of another apartment block, lay one of my old renditions, damaged but surviving, my name printed on the cover. The image was in colour, but it might as well have been devoid of color, drained of life among the debris and wreckage. For most of my career, I had been anonymous, as all translators are. But here was my work made apparent – scarred, but enduring.

I stared at the image for a long time. The author writes that “all translation is a statement”, but I had never felt the complete significance of this until then. To translate, even under bombardment, was to say: “this voice mattered”. It will not be forgotten. To translate is not just to carry stories across languages, but to help them persist when everything else falls away. It is a persistent, unyielding refusal to disappear.