Iman Humaydan was born in 1956. She has written four novels, which aretranslated into many languages. Her last novel 50 Grams of Paradise won Katara Prize in 2016. In 2017, The French translation of the novel was shortlisted for the Literary Prize of the Arab World Institute in Paris. Her first novel B as in Beirut tells the stories of women living in a time of war, on the demarcation line between the two parts of the Beirut. Since 2015 is Creative Writing Professor at University Paris 8. She is a co-founder of PEN Lebanon, and its current president. A Board member of Pen International. The author writes currently her fifth novel and lives between Beirut and Paris. Intelekti Publishing published two of her novels in Georgian: B as in Beirut and Wild Mulberries. The novels were translated to Georgian by Darejan Gardavadze.
Other Lives
(excerpt from the novel)
Perhaps my sole habit is tied to memory: a permanent feeling of being in a transient state since I left Lebanon. In my house in Mombasa I leave my handbag on the table in the entryway, as though I’m about to leave at any minute or only there on a short trip, visiting strangers. “Myriam, this is your house. This is your house and you are its mistress, why don’t you put your things away? Why do you leave stuff scattered around like this, in suitcases?” Chris always repeats these questions impatiently, in his English accent, when he sees my things left for days in the small hallway next to the front door of the house. He looks at my address book and the leather bag where I keep the novels that I receive from Lebanon. I take them with me in the car or leave them in the front garden of the house where I often sit. But Chris’s words don’t diminish my feelings of alienation from him—if anything they make it worse. I’m well aware that my habit of always being on alert and nervously ready for anything is something I brought with me from wartime Beirut, from the memory of bomb shelters and needing to move from one place to another, safer one. This remains inside of me, never leaving me, throughout years of nomadic moving and wandering between Adelaide and Mombasa. I know that my anxiety has become like my shadow and long ago left its imprint on my personality.
Translated by Michelle Hartman