Abbas BEYDOUN (Lebanon) is a poet, novelist and journalist. He studied at the Lebanese University in Beirut and the Sorbonne in Paris. He was involved in left-wing politics and spent time in jail as a young man. Since becoming a full-time writer, he has published numerous volumes of poetry. His works have been translated into all the major European languages. Since 1997, Beydoun has been cultural editor of the Beiruti newspaper As-Safir. In 2017, his book Khareef al Bara’a (The Autumn of Innocence) won the Sheik Zayed Book Award.
Murderers
The murderers here do nothing except be murderers. And we say: the angels have left and they have done nothing. And we say: the wellbred are few now, and the teachers have fled.
Precise pain need no instrument, the way poison acts without volition. But a thought without speech, we do not know when it will be murdered.
Pride, when it wounds, spills no blood; it spills cruelty. Yet pain is made in abundance and is poured on everyone.
The murderers here do nothing. But you know they bury something in their silence. In a secret language the loss of a word means a tomb.
(Translated by Khaled Mattawa)
阿巴斯．貝多恩（黎巴嫩），詩人、小說家與記者，曾就讀於貝魯特黎巴嫩大學及巴黎索邦大學。他曾從事當地的左翼政治運動，年輕時曾因而身陷囹圄。自從成為全職作家以來，貝多恩著有多本詩集，作品獲翻譯成各種主要的歐洲語言。從1997年開始擔任貝魯特報紙As-Safir的文化版編輯。2017年，他的著作《純真的秋天》獲謝赫．扎耶德圖書大獎。
殺人者
殺人者們不做什麼，他們只是殺人者。我們說：天使們什麼也沒做就走了，還說：樹根減少了，教師們逃走了。
有意的侵害無需工具，如同毒藥無需惡意。而那不知如何言語的思想，則不知將於何時被殺。
當傲慢傷人時，流出的不是血，而是殘酷，但痛苦大量地產生，傾瀉在所有人頭上。
殺人者們不做什麼，但你知道，他們正在他們的沉默中埋藏著什麼，而在一種秘密的語言中，一個詞語的失去，就意味著一座墳墓。
（翻譯﹕韓譽）