I Grant You Refuge
Hiba Abu Nada
One of Hiba Abu Nada's final poems, written on 10 October 2023: an invocation that tries to shelter children, parents, streets, houses, and oranges inside language.
About this poem
Hiba Abu Nada wrote “I Grant You Refuge” on 10 October 2023. Protean Magazine, which published Huda Fakhreddine’s English translation, identifies it as one of the final pieces Abu Nada composed before she was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 20 October.
The poem has five movements. Each extends the act of refuge: first toward a neighborhood and minaret, then toward children and their parents, and finally toward the natural and built world under bombardment. Its form cannot stop a weapon; the poem knows that. It nevertheless makes language perform the work of shelter, prayer, and witness.
The poem remains under copyright and is not reproduced here. Read Huda Fakhreddine’s published translation at Protean Magazine.
Sources
- “I Grant You Refuge” — Protean Magazine (full poem, translated by Huda Fakhreddine)
- “Not Just Passing” and biographical note — ArabLit
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“I Grant You Refuge — Hiba Abu Nada.” Poems, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/poems/i-grant-you-refuge.- MLA
“I Grant You Refuge — Hiba Abu Nada.” Poems, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/poems/i-grant-you-refuge. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-i-grant-you-refuge, title = {I Grant You Refuge — Hiba Abu Nada}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/poems/i-grant-you-refuge}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }