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  My mother is your grandmother, you will be the mother of your daughter who will never sow. Inserting the seed is a man’s job, but who knows if he will be there to harvest. My mother died [...]

My mother was strong, too strong. She cut so much wood that a fire was kept going all winter long. We were always warm, warmer than here. My father hunted to feed us, like a pagan. He grew grain [...]

Come closer, my breath is weakening. You must hear me. My mother worked in the fields. Her grandparents had a beautiful farm, she said, but I doubt that was true. She invented lies just to make [...]

We were searching for berries, when I stumbled on a stump. Behind it was a nest, imagine, a woodcock with chicks! They tried to flee, but we had not eaten meat for so long we were not going to [...]

Would you really rather have been born in that time? The gods still lived among men in grand palaces. They ate meat, they drank wine, they didn’t work. They travelled in golden chariots [...]

When we went out, we would see from far an old woman in the forest who picked berries and slept at the bottom of a ravine. One day, Mama brought her back to the cave. We gave her food, she was so [...]

  In the city, she had lived from men. She knew how to read, dance, sing. She taught me, but I forgot. What use would these refinements serve here? In the countryside, it is not a good trade, men [...]

  See how my hands are pink and smooth after I bathe them in almond milk? When I was a child, they were always dirty and rough. Sometimes I burned myself with the cauldron. Not only was the work [...]

I hear women tell their daughters, I do not know why. War should not be told, the blood spilled in the gravel, in the grain. Sliced throats, flayed skin, spilled guts, rape, famine, even your [...]

    One morning my mother raised me from the bed where I was sleeping with my sisters. I approached slowly, afraid he’d wake up. A sob crawled up inside my throat, making me gag. His face was [...]

The hands of my mother were stained by the dye and all chapped, like mine, you see. She would look at them. She would say, my grandparents were rich. She said, the women in my family, curled, [...]