“Écriture, si féminine”: an excerpted translation of Atiq Rahimi’s Mehsti, words in the flesh

Mehsti, Words in the Flesh is an excerpted translation from French of Atiq Rahimi’s Mehstî, chair des mots (Calmann-Lévy 2023), a hybrid text about—and love letter to—the twelfth-century Persian-language poet Mehsti Ganjavi. As he pieces together clues of Mehsti’s life, historical context, and poetry, Rahimi directly addresses her, adding his own commentary on philosophy, language, and translation along the way. In style, content, and form, Mehsti, Words in the Flesh is a celebration of the medieval poet’s life and oeuvre as seen through the lens of Hélène Cixous’ concept of écriture féminine and Rahimi’s own admiring gaze, offering a wider contemporary readership a glimpse of this innovative and vibrant poet and her work.