The Taste of the Earth

The frictions that memory and forgetting share are anchored in love of knowledge, love of learning, and love of texts as the most faithful companions until our death: "I have collected enough books to keep me company till the day I die" For Habra, an Egyptian poet and winner of numerous book awards, the laudability of learning, creativity, and imagination must be resolutely rejoiced. "The House of Happiness" unfolds this dual quality to its maximum: "I wished to retrace forgotten steps steeped in oleander / but only see dried-up vines deserted / sidewalks where shadows sink in their own reflections." Exiled subjectivities, in particular, confront the struggle of going home, which may turn into an alienating feeling: "Decades later, I no longer find my bearings, highways crisscross a city once mine in the map of memory:" Going home-which in The Taste of the Earth is subsequent to wars, personal loss, destroyed human lives, and annihilated landscapes-often manifests as a semblance of death.