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Contributor

Vénus Khoury-Ghata

Contributor

Vénus Khoury-Ghata

Vénus Khoury-Ghata is a Lebanese poet and novelist who lives in France. She received the Prix Mallarmé in 1987 for Monologue du mort, the Prix Apollinaire in 1980 for Les Ombres et leurs cris, and the Grand Prix de la Société des gens de lettres for Fables pour un peuple d'argile in 1992. Her Anthologie personelle, a selection of her previously published and new poems, appeared in 1997. Her other collections include Elle dit (1999); La Compassion des Pierres (2000) and Quelle est la nuit parmi les nuits (2004). Her volumes in English, translated by Marilyn Hacker, include Here There Was Once a Country (2000); She Says (2003); and A House at the Edge of Tears (2005).

Articles by Vénus Khoury-Ghata

Dead
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
the foxes who recognized her by her smell didn’t light their matches
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
As night became talkative
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Her kitchen utensils fled after the last guest deserted her
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Her apron drawn on her skin
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
The mother sent us out in the street naked
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
It was a November of bitter rain and snow blackened by use
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
A child would liquefy as soon as a snowflake touched the ground.
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
God, the mother claimed, is behind every tree in the forest
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Yet the storm announced festive disorder
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
Helicopter seeds on a maple tree
Photo by bales on Unsplash
When did their language mingle with ours
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
The female branches made off with the laundry on our lines
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
How to find the mother when her face disappeared behind the hills
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
if a storm broke she collapsed in soot
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
Crazy Zarifé
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Perused that evening by lamplight, that essay made the schoolmistress' hair stand on end.
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
From “Nettles”
By Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Statements of small importance / spreading like phosphorous fire on dry grass
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker