They are old, bent, and bitter. The first has a lip that hangs down to her navel: she uses it to moisten the wool. The second’s thumb is so thick it is wider than her palm: it flattens the [...]

While he was able to pledge a substantial dowry, Father said I would make an even better marriage if I were educated in fine manners, and in dance and music. He was right. He was always right. I [...]

Everyone thought he would be crippled like her, but he came out big and healthy, a boy who cried loudly, who wanted to nurse all the time. I was born first, before my brother. My aunt who had [...]

She had to take care of her brothers and sister and her sick mother for a long time. That role should have been by tradition her older sister’s but she ran away to the north instead. My [...]

My father says I was born nine months after my mother died. The girls in the village laugh, they say it’s not true. That’s why my back is twisted.      

    Soon after you were born, the barbarians from the south invaded the coast. We fled to the ravines and the hills. They stole everything, the grain, the wine, the salt fish, the lentils. Only [...]

I was all alone. I had been told about the sea, but I never believed it. The sea goes on and on and on. Where I come from, the view is always masked by a wall, a tree, a hill. We could think the [...]

  My daughter my little girl Sleep high, sleep to the right Sleep down, sleep to the left Shhh, shhh, I will protect you from all I will protect you from the spells of the incubus, From knives [...]

  Their backs relax against upholstered wood while their buttocks are cushioned with comfortable pillows all embroidered by hand. We sit in the back, on hard benches, be careful those splinters [...]

  You remember your grandmother, don’t you? In your body, a small person wanders, bakes her bread as you saw her do every day, heals wounds with her poultices, caresses the head of a sheep, mends [...]