She tried to run

with excerpts from, In the House of Silence (anthology of Arab Women writers)

“Fear shapes the space of my writing. It has resolved many things and is behind many decisions. No sooner is the cupboard of childhood opened than the aroma of the house - a mixture of fear and submission - wafts into my face and settles there. However, the important thing is that the door is opened even if, on most occasions, its sharp creak grates upon the ear. ”

— Alia Mamdouh

“Despite having travelled across four continents, I still carry the prison inside me. ”

— Hamida Na'na

“Because the world owes us things which are not recognized or not remembered, we write so that the world can regain its memory, so that we can collect its debt. We write to recover the things which are ours and which the world denies us. We write to retrieve and take revenge.
But we also write to leave everything to the wind, to allow ourselves to drift, in want of nothing....
We write because we are useless...because nobody needs us.

I write for myself and against myself, against my tribe and my memory, against my grandfather and my father so that I can bury them and remember them well.

I write because I am free, and because I can never be free. ”

— Salwa Bakr