Sof

“Listen to me: It is not gauche to write about trauma. It is subversive. The stigma of victimhood is a timeworn tool of oppressive powers to gaslight the people they subjugate into believing that by naming their disempowerment they are being dramatic, whining, attention-grabbing, or else beating a dead horse. By convincing us to police our own and one another’s stories, they have enlisted us in the project of our own continued disempowerment.”
― Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative

“Once I realized that I inevitably fail whenever I try to navigate borders, I decided to stay within the confines of my house as much as possible. And since this house has many windows, through which the neighbours and their children can easily see me, and catch me trespassing borders even when I’m in my own house, I hung the curtains, although I’ll inevitably forget to close them sometimes.”
― Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

“Then I ask him if, as a Palestinian, I can enter these museums and archives? And he responds, before putting down the receiver, that he doesn’t see what would prevent me. And I don’t see what would prevent me either, except for my identity card.”
― Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

“I have found that a fulfilling writing life is one in which the creative process merges with the other necessary processes of good living, which only the individual can define.”
― Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative