Bøker av Rana Bitar

March 18, 2020Corona and CancerHow much time do I have? The man asks.With words muffled behind my double mask,I mumble something. He accepts the answer,the non-answer. Sometimes, you ask just to hear the question and not the response.Is death disguised in the cancer cells inside him? Or is it floating in the air around us?I give him chemotherapy to chase away the first.I wear a mask to trap out the second. Equal fight?Unknown. The answer hides behind the mask of uncertainty.What I had mumbled was:How much time does life on Earth have?I am glad he didn't hear it.He is glad too.Talking to people behind masks is tricky.They can only see your eyesand the frown in them can't hide behind a smile.Truth. The truth is more naked behind a mask. I feel each breath I take. How precious life is behind a mask!Unmasked, you're never aware of breathing.I hear my breath behind a mask. How loud life is behind a mask!Masks don't cover your vision. Only your gasp. Google statistics.Roll, roll, numbers roll. County's count. State's count. Nation's count. World's count. In the beginning, I could add and subtractyesterday's cases from today's. How many more?Now I can't. With six digits, you lose track.No. You won't lose your job,I answer my single-mother secretary.Did she smile? Can I see her mouth behind her mask?Did she see the truth in my eyes?Thank God for masks. No one questions the truth in the eyes if it doesn't come out of the mouth.How many masks do I have? I have to make some from scratch this weekend.

A LOAF OF BREAD is a requiem for the loss of the author's homeland. During the years of the civil war in Syria, the author lost her father-in-law; he was buried in a hurry in some unrecognizable ground in Aleppo. Her aunt died alone in a sieged nursing home; her belongings were stolen. Her father was flown ill around the USA on a stretcher; he never got to go back home to his village in Syria; his bones rattle in some cemetery in South Carolina. During the war, her house in Damascus was bombed. She followed the struggle of her friends and a thousand others as they boarded rubber boats and floated to the unknown; some drowned in the sea and some in their despair. A Loaf Of Bread digs into the depth of anguish to excavate the collective human experience of grieving and enduring across the maps of losses.