Salma Salem

Salwa Salem was born in 1940 at Kafr Zibad, Palestine, and spent her childhood first in Jaffa and then in Nablus, where her family took refuge following the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. After studying philosophy at the University of Damascus, she spent most of her life in Parma, Italy, where she died in 1992. Laura Maritano was born in Turin in 1965. She has a degree in literature with a concentration in cultural anthropology as it relates to the Arab world and in particular the Palestinian question. She also participated in a research project on Italian memoirs from the Nazi concentration camps. Yvonne Freccero has translated widely from French, Italian, and Spanish, including several works by Rene Girard. She lives in Florence, Massachusetts.