Summary

Aaliya continues to discuss translations in this section of the novel. She shares with her reader that she has never published any of her translations, only stored each translation she has finished in crates in her apartment. She believes her work is unpublishable because few in the Arab world are interested in literature, much less Arabic translations of literature. She says she continues to do the translations because she is committed to the work. Because she has made her work of translating a sort of master for herself, it is this master of her life that helps time pass more easily. She describes herself as being happy when she is at work on a translation. She even admits to her reader that near the end of the war a publisher had contacted her and asked if she would consider trying to complete a...