“What can heart surgeons offer in an age that devours children, nerves, and hearts? What can they offer those civilizations that gnaw at the mines of the soul every moment… and the successive collapses of sorrow that technology has only exacerbated? What can they offer against nuclear missiles launched by mistake, and which may one day be launched deliberately to annihilate millions, and gases that eat away at the black of the eye and burn thousands in the blink of an eye, and past and future wars that threaten the extinction of humanity, trees, fish, and birds? We all respect heart surgeons who dedicate their lives to saving patients. But what is the point of their struggle if it is not complemented by another extraordinary effort to make our planet a place fit for life, not a trap of annihilation? And even if we were to assume, for the sake of argument, that heart transplant surgery developed to the point of becoming inexpensive and guaranteed to produce results, what is the point of giving a person a new heart if we are going to kill them again? It is as if we are transplanting a new heart today so that they may die twice tomorrow. As if we are prolonging their life only to increase the number of their deaths. Transplanting a patient’s heart is not complete without transplanting a heart for their era… and this is the task of the rest of the inhabitants of this farcical planet.” The struggle to prolong one’s life is like killing one repeatedly, a reflection of the contradictions inherent in Arab life. A critical yet constructive social perspective, a touch of exquisite literature, and a reproachful, ironic tone characterize Ghada al-Samman’s prose, flowing with a powerful intensity from her deeply troubled soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This book comprises literary and social essays addressing war, occupation, alienation, and human despair, along with reflections on love, freedom, women, and the Arab reality, all expressed in a critical, ironic language charged with rejection and sorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_cat":[899,940,923,832,860,835],"product_tag":[2728,1108,1084,1028],"class_list":["post-31506","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-prose-literature","product_cat-arabic-literature","product_cat-literary-articles","product_cat-politics","product_cat-women","product_cat-sociology","product_tag-literature","product_tag-palestine","product_tag-politics","product_tag-women","pa_book-author-ghada-al-samman","first","onbackorder","sale","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/31506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=31506"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=31506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}