Alan Cabello / Pexels

When I heard his story of exile
I knew that impiety had no name,
and the tough sun fell like iron
on us, and I understood death.
When he said, innocent,
man is nothing, nothing to hope,
the white labyrinth of love moved my flesh,
and grew the time of guilt.
Blind words in the afternoon showed
his struggle against the sea,
and the sun rolled
like a rotting dark rose.
When I heard his story of exile
great desolation came, mourning,
that moved the steps in the shadow,
and the incessant trap of a dream.
He pronounced his name, and a long
solitude had already started to separate us. 

Giovanni Quessep
Giovanni Quessep is one of the most important and innovative Colombian poets, and one of the eminent poets of the Levantine diaspora from Latin America. He was born on January 6, 1939 in San Onofre, northern Colombia to a father from Tannourine Lebanon, and a mother from Bogotá. He published his first poetry book, After Paradise in 1961, and his second, Being is not a Fable in 1968 while he was in Italy. This collection marked the start of his unique poetic voice. Quessep’s voice is unmistakable, and his 14 poetry collections, and three volumes of collected poems has been widely written about and deeply admired in Colombia. He was awarded the Premio Nacional De Poesía José Asunción Silva in 2004, the IX Premio Nacional de Poesía por Reconocimiento de la Universidad de Antioquia in 2007, the Premio Mundial de Poesía René Char in 2015, among others. Nathalie Handal is translating poems from his entire body of work in a collection entitled, The Other Blue: Collected Poems 1968-2025.

Nathalie Handal
Nathalie Handal is described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” She has lived in four continents, is the author of 10 award winning books, translated into over 15 languages, including Life in a Country Album, winner of the Palestine Book Award; the flash collection The Republics, lauded as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers,” and winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and the Arab American Book Award. Handal is the recipient of awards from the PEN Foundation, Lannan Foundation, Fondazione di Venezia, Centro Andaluz de las Letras, and Africa Institute, among others. She is professor of literature and creative writing at New York University-AD, and writes the literary travel column, “The City and the Writer” for Words without Borders magazine.