Translating Through the Tehran Blackout

As I sat hunched over the Spanish manuscript of Fernanda Trías’s 'No soñarás flores', the irony of my situation was not lost on me. Here I was, trying to find the right Persian words for Trías’s tales of quiet loss, while outside, the air was thick with the scent of gunpowder and the final breaths of a generation. Each time I encountered a linguistic challenge or a cultural nuance that demanded a quick online search, I would glance at the laptop’s connection icon, only to be reminded of the void left by the internet blackout.

The absence of internet transformed the act of translation into a laborious task, a slow and agonizing crawl through sentences that seemed less like fiction and more like prophecies. The parallels between the stories on my desk and the reality unfolding outside were unsettling. It was as if Trías’s narratives were echoing the war of choice that I was witnessing in my own country.

In this haunting reflection, I grapple with the challenges of translating literature amidst the chaos of a nation in turmoil. The process became a metaphor for the struggle to maintain cultural connections and understanding in a world where communication is severed, and the familiar becomes foreign.