Join the 
Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith
 for an in-store event with writer Iman Mersal to discuss and celebrate the release of 
Motherhood and Its Ghosts
 
and 
Traces of Enayat
.
From one of the preeminent poets of the Arabic-speaking world, come two brilliant and personal works of creative nonfiction retracing and exploring the lives of women.
Iman Mersal has only one photograph of her mother, who died giving birth at age twenty-seven. But the woman portrayed in it strikes her as very unlike the one in her fleeting childhood memories, in mood, expression, dress.
When Mersal has a child of her own decades later, she begins to wonder whether it’s possible to depict a mother with any degree of fidelity. How to represent—in photography, dream, memory, or writing—an individual whose complex inner landscape has suddenly come under threat of looming archetypes? What is hidden in traditional representations of moth­erhood? What lies outside the narrative in which motherhood “means giving, the melding of two distinct selves, a love unlimited and unconditional”?
Sifting through the archives of motherhood, including journal entries, photo­graphs, and the writings that have informed her own poetic practice, Mersal privileg­es questions over answers, drifting over arriving, allowing a form of motherhood to exist in these pages unbounded.
And in 
Traces of Enayat
, winner of the prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award, Mersal retraces the mysterious life and erasure of Egyptian literature's tragic heroine, Enayat al-Zayyat.
Cairo, 1963: four years before her lone novel is finally published, the writer Enayat al-Zayyat takes her own life at age twenty-seven. For the next three decades, it's as if Enayat never existed at all. Years later, when celebrated Egyptian poet Iman Mersal stumbles upon Enayat's long-forgotten 
Love and Silence 
in a Cairo book stall, she embarks on a journey of reflection and rediscovery that leads her ever closer to the world and work of Enayat.
In this luminous biographical detective story, Mersal retraces Enayat's life and afterlife though interviews with family members and friend, even tracking down the apartments, schools, and sanatoriums where Enayat spent her days. As Mersal maps two simultaneous psychogeographies—from the glamor of golden-age Egyptian cinema to the Cairo of Mersal's own past—a remarkable portrait emerges of two women striving to live on their own terms. With 
Traces of Enayat
, Iman Mersal embraces the reciprocal relationship between a text and its reader, between past and present, between author and subject.
Iman Mersal 
is an Egyptian writer, translator, and literary scholar. A professor of Arabic language and literature at the University of Alberta, she is the author of five books of Arabic poetry. In English translation, her poems have appeared in 
The New Republic
, 
The New York Review of Books
, 
Parnassus
, 
The Paris Review
, and 
The Nation
, among others. 
The Threshold
, translated by Robyn Creswell and published in 2022, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won the 2023 National Translation Award. Mersal received the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in Literature for her creative nonfiction book 
Traces of Enayat
, published by Transit Books in 2024.
Translator 
Robin Moger
 is a translator of Arabic to English who lives in Barcelona. His translations of prose and poetry have appeared in 
Blackbox Manifold
, 
The White Review
, 
Asymptote
, 
Words Without Borders
, 
Washington Square Review
, 
Michigan Review
, and elsewhere.
The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith
The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. 
Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter
 for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more.
What You Need to Know to Attend
RSVP
 to let us know you're coming! RSVPs don't guarantee a seat, but you'll be alerted to important details about the program, including safety requirements, cancellations, and book signing updates.
Reserve a Book
Books will be available for purchase at the event, but you can ensure that you get a copy by preordering on this page. You can pick your book up after 6:30PM on the day of the event.
Can't make it to the event? Preorder the book here to have it signed, and choose to have it held or shipped from the store! Book orders are processed for pickup or shipping after ticket sales have closed.
Livestream!
Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed to our store YouTube channel.
Event Accesibility
This event will take place at street level.
 If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email ticketing@brooklinebooksmith.com as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations
. 
We will do our best to serve your needs!
IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING COVID & IN-PERSON EVENTS:
Please note that any Brookline Booksmith in-person event may be canceled by the bookstore, publisher, or author based on concerns about health and safety around the time of the event. Wherever possible, any in-person appearance canceled due to COVID will be moved to the Brookline Booksmith Zoom as a Webinar at the same date and time, and all tickets & registrations will be transferred to the online event. Book signing details may change. Refunds may be requested in the case of a virtual pivot or event cancelation.
Information Source: Brookline Booksmith | eventbrite

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