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| PARWEEN FAIZ ZADAH MALAAL |
LIKE A DESERT FLOWER
Like a desert flower waiting for rain,
like a river-bank thirsting for the touch of pitchers,
like the dawn
longing for light;
and like a house,
like a house in ruins for want of a woman —
the exhausted ones of our times
need a moment to breathe,
need a moment to sleep,
in the arms of peace, in the arms of peace.
Translated by
DAWOOD AZAMI
Poet, writer, journalist, broadcaster and diplomat Parween Faiz Zadah Malaal was born in the southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan in 1957. She attended Kabul University and began her journalistic career as a reporter for the newspaper Tolo-e-Afghan, remaining in the capital where she was later employed by the state-owned Radio Afghanistan.
When Afghanistan became a war zone she fled to Pakistan where she married while confined to a refugee camp. She remained in Pakistan following the death of her husband, eventually becoming the Cultural Attaché at the Afghan consulate in Karachi and publishing three collections of poetry between 1987 and 2000 and one short story collection in 1996, all of which were written in her native tongue Pashto. She remains one of her country's most popular female poets and continues to live in exile in Karachi.
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