Mister N Quotes

“Lazarus may have made a report when he returned. He must have written something, left something behind somewhere. It's inconceivable for someone to live through that experience and say nothing about it. But no doubt someone else tore it up, wiped it away, and blotted out those words, which were they discovered, would shake the very foundations of heaven and earth.”
― Najwa Barakat, Mister N

“Ah! Here I am reverting to the third-person pronoun. What makes it so hard to write "I"? Just one letter, and I would become the center around which things are divided up and arranged. My brother, Sa'id has his "I," which surprised me for so long. An enormous, gigantic, terrifying "I" that showed up and overshadowed everything around him. His "I" flies on awful wings of colorful feathers that blind your sight. Resounding, rumbling, chaotic. But as soon as the wind blows, they scatter. Thurayya's "I" was solid, firm, heavy, severe. There was no ambiguity about it. Hard as ice. No, even harder! Thurayya drained my body of all its "I." She pressed it down and squeezed until she turned it into nothing.”
― Najwa Barakat, Mister N

“My wife was of salt. Grains of salt, ready to dissolve. Salt always has a kind of coercion. There's something in its flavor that tastes like distress...”
― Najwa Barakat, Mister N