Fady Joudah

says that essentially we all write one book and you keep repeating it to get it right or you're not satisfied because that one book that you had an idea of keeps changing as your life moves forward.

So that's one sort of generic answer to genuine nonetheless.

But with Mimesis, really, it became...

Obviously, it was a poem written out of a familial intimacy and much more.

And then it became quite a hit.

And it got anthologized a lot.

Now, I don't know what a lot means, so maybe I'm exaggerating that.

But it seems like everybody, you know, pops up and wants to say something about Fatty Judah.

It's like this poem keeps coming up.

And when this started happening, considering that the poem was published, you know, 10, 11 years ago, I began to feel uncomfortable because I did not, I wasn't entirely sure that if I may say so and be forgiven.

for my lack of nuance, that I was living in a society that really understood the poem.

And the poem, first of all, has a very spontaneous conversation with Islamic lore for a story that the prophet has with a spider.

And so when I read this poem in, as I told you earlier, in Bangladesh, the crowd was, I mean, their reaction, I knew exactly what their reaction was because it was a transformation of something they grew up with, but it was put in a contemporary mode and without any reference to any, you know, thing.

And I also think that we seek here some kind of a...

I don't know what the word is, but a pass or to be absolved.

And I think the poem was absolving many of its readers of something that I wasn't interested in absolving them of.

So everybody seemed to love their empathy toward refugees by this poem.

And, you know...

It is absolutely one of the unspeakable things to say, but to feel like, well, here is Mimesis for you again.

You know, and they're both simply lived experiences.