…when I began to write in English, everything worsened. The words seemed to come, not from my skin and flesh, but from somewhere unknown, where I could neither feel nor touch them. When I wanted to bring a concept to paper, words fled from my memory – disappeared like wisps of smoke in the air, their meanings dissolving in my mind. Even when certain words were part of my general working vocabulary, when I tried to use them in creative writing, it alienated me, the words ringing without soul or life. They were not my own. Fictional characters were stiff as mannequins, bearing abstract faces and bodies; never more than sketchy armatures for statues was trying to build. I could hardly recognize my own writing. The plot and descriptive passages were foreign to me. A voice inside me yelled, You’re not an English-languae writer. Your heart’s language is Farsi. Do not make it foreign to yourself. (107-08)

-My mother's text describing her struggle with English translations of her work.