Jila Mossaed (ژیلا مساعد)

[Allt var vitt när jag]

Poems

• 1 [Var rädd om din smärta] | Translations: deen
• 2 [Jag är en ensam nation] | Translations: deen
• 3 [På kvällen ringer telefonen] | Translations: deen
• 4 [Vi sover alla i trädgården] | Translations: deen
• 5 [Jag tycker inte om] | Translations: deen
• 6 [Har bjudit in trädet] | Translations: deen
• 7 [Det var ditt stoft] | Translations: deen
• 8 [En liten bit av ett träd] | Translations: deen
• 9 [Allt var vitt när jag] | Translations: deen
• 10 [Vem väver om nätterna] | Translations: deen
• 11 [Ett barn vid havet] | Translations: deen
• 12 آن شب
• 13 و دیوانگی را نامی تازه دادند

Language: swedish

Translations: german ([Alles war weiß, als ich]), english ([Everything was white when I])

[Allt var vitt när jag]

Allt var vitt när jag
vaknade och satte mig på sängkanten
Vek ihop drömbilderna
och lade dem under kudden

Vilken dag är det idag?
Ibland glömmer jag att andas
Utanför står daglönarna i kö
dricker Coca-Cola
och äter kallt bröd
lutade mot väggen
tysta

Ibland köar de i mina drömmar
för att berätta

Translations:

Language: german

[Alles war weiß, als ich]

Alles war weiß, als ich
aufgewacht bin und
mich auf die Bettkante gesetzt
die Traumbilder zusammengewoben
und sie unter das Kissen gelegt habe

Welcher Tag ist heute?
Manchmal vergesse ich, zu atmen
Draußen stehen die Tagelöhner Schlange
trinken Coca-Cola
essen kaltes Brot
an die Wand gelehnt
still

Manchmal stehen sie in meinen Träumen Schlange
um zu erzählen

Language: english

[Everything was white when I]

Everything was white when I

woke up and sat on the edge of the bed

Folded up my dreams

and tucked them under my pillow

What day is it?

Sometimes I forget to breathe

Outside, the wage laborers are waiting in line

drinking Coca-Cola

and eating cold bread

leaning against the wall

silent

Sometimes they queue up in my dreams

to tell their stories

Jila Mossaed

ژیلا مساعد

photo © private

* 04.04.1948, Tehran, Iran
lives in: Gothenburg, Sweden

Jila Mossaed was born in Tehran in 1948. Since she took refuge in Sweden in 1986, she has published a large number of books in Persian exile publishing houses, as well as seven volumes of poetry in Swedish. Her books are banned in Iran and although her poems were only printed in magazines due to censorship there, she is still read in Iran and is even counted among the great poets of the twentieth century.

In Sweden, Mossaed has received many prestigious awards for her poetry, including the Gustav-Fröding Prize, Nordstedt's Author's Grant, a poetry scholarship from the Swedish Academy, and others.
Her works have been translated into many languages. In 2017 an edition of her collected poems was published in Dutch. In 2018 she was appointed a member of the Swedish Academy.

photo © private

In her poems, Jila Mossaed treats exile both as a painful experience and as a possibility of artistic expression, making it possible to deal with the real wounds, those of political and religious oppression. Her poems reflect her survival through words, through poems and her position as a poet and woman. In her poetics, Swedish minimalism meets the opulent, sensual Persian lyric tradition.

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