Additional information
by Bushra Al-Maqtari (Author), Sawad Hussain (Translator)
In 2015, a year after it started, Bushra al-Maqtari decided to document the suffering of civilians in the Yemeni Civil War, which has killed over 350,000 people according to the UN. Inspired by the work of Svetlana Alexievich, she spent two years visiting different parts of the country, putting her life at risk by speaking with her compatriots, and gathered over 400 testimonies, a selection of which appear in What Have You Left Behind? Purposefully alternating between accounts from the victims of the Houthi militia and those of the Saudi-led coalition, al-Maqtari highlights the disillusionment and anguish felt by those trapped in a war outside of their own making. As difficult to read as it is to put down, this unvarnished chronicle of the conflict serves as a vital reminder of the scale of the human tragedy behind the headlines, and offers a searing condemnation of the international community's complicity in the war's continuation.
Author Biography
Sawad Hussain is a translator from the Arabic whose work has been recognized by English PEN, the Anglo-Omani Society and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, among others. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards. Her recent translations include Passage to the Plaza by Sahar Khalifeh and A Bed for the King's Daughter by Shahla Ujayli. She has run workshops introducing translation to students and adults under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes and Shubbak Festival. She is the 2022 translator in residence at the British Centre for Literary Translation.
