iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Lisa C. Hayden @lizoksbooks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Thank you for reading, Thomas! And thank you for your kind words about the translation, which was truly a team effort, thanks to Egana and New Vessel Press. It was such a joy to work with them on making the translation read as well as possible!

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stevemid.bsky.social @stevemid.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I had to rotate it but it's so good! In 2022, economist Kyla Scanlon coined the term the “Vibescession." The feeling of recession not supported by the data. In many ways this is a vibemap but it goes way beyond that. #AMapMaker'sDream #JamesCowan

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody Brutal! How does one reconcile with that? How do vou forgive? You can't. A great story!! Thank you @lizoksbooks.bskv.social for an incredible heartfelt translation! Thank you @yelenafurman.bsky.social and @olgaz.bsky.social for bringing #MyDreadfulBody to our attention!

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Andrea Meador Smith @andreamsmith.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

#MyDreadfulBody, chapter XI: Belly. “It's as if syllables from the roomy words [for ‘woman’] will be dropped if no wedding ring appears on a woman's finger and her womb never carries a child. I know that I'm no longer a true woman to them” 🎯📚 #Djabbarova26 #WomenInTranslation

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

But words and pain took up the space instead of children. And they were all that fully belonged to me, since words and pain were as impossible to take or give away as the rocks of Gobustan. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody www.azernews.az/nation/19842...

azernews.az

Gobustan rock art: Cradle of civilization and fine art

Rock drawings (rock art) are unique sources of information about prehistoric life of humanity.

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

My body angered him and my legs in tight-fit- was angry. ting fabric interested him more than his own drunkenness, more than the illness that had ruined my health, and more than my mother's misfortune; they angered him because they were visible. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Whatever the case, there was to be no talk about one's own body, about what was happening to it, if it was ill or healthy, gaining or losing weight- the body had to be invisible and nothing drew more attention than a crimson bloodstain. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "Stars winked at one another, conveying entire poems in Morse code to local residents but remaining undeciphered."

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Andrea Meador Smith @andreamsmith.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“We’d been clutching each other by the throat, in a death grip of fear, for too long… and an unbreakable chain of horror had held us the throat for years” 📚 #Djabbarova26 #WomenInTranslation

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Andrea Meador Smith @andreamsmith.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

#MyDreadfulBody, chapter X: Throat. “I wanted to finally break the vicious circle of retribution and open our shut mouths so I could shout about my own existence and the existences of mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and girl-friends“ 📚 #Djabbarova26 #WomenInTranslation

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Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "Just like in the hospital wards, where bodies are simply bodies, a form of existence and empathy, a conversation without a conversation."

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Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "By condemning the bodies of strangers, they consoled their own bodies." "Seeing the bodies of others means seeing one's own as it actually is."

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Andrea Meador Smith @andreamsmith.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My Dreadful Body, chapter IX: Legs. “I decided that after the operation I had to buy myself some red high-heeled shoes… It turned out that the mere ability to walk was more interesting than heels, so I bought myself some sneakers instead. 👠🚶🏻‍♀️📚 #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody #WomenInTranslation

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Catherine Eaton @sparrowpost.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Unlike my girlfriends and others around me, however, my glasses—like books—never betrayed me. They always waited for me to return to their world when I opened up another book or took them off my nightstand; they waited for me to open my eyes again. Egana Djabbaraova, My Dreadful Body

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

They felt better in the morning after the prayer because it seemed as if the words that had been released into the world took that burden with them. I often heard my mother pray at night. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

When she was sure there were no witnesses, my paternal grandmother would whisper a nocturnal prayer: the words bumped into one another as if they were clumped prayer beads that then skittered down through her voice box. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody Prayer: Qiyam al-Layl-standing during the night

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Throat: Those pieces of jewelry bore messages from one woman to another, telling of a husband's love, of an engagement, of an argument, or of redemption after guilt. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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stevemid.bsky.social @stevemid.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I asked her about her tattooed-on eyebrows. She explained that she had it done because, "as you know I'm Lebanese." Well I'm 79 years old and I certainly did not know what that had to do with the price of bananas. So I like the body part about eyebrows. #Djabbarova26 #mycapdreadfulbody #LisaCHayden

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#MyDreadfulBody #Djabbarova26 Ch 9: Legs “I thought my body was abnormal until I went to a public swimming pool…It was a genuine revelation and relief to realize how varied and imperfect bodies are. Not one body that I saw at the pool resembled those I’d seen in magazines or on the screen” (90-91).

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Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...this was my pain, my narrative, which I didn't want to share with anyone."

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Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "Years passed and his rage strengthened like fine cognac and hardened like the bark of an old tree..."

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Andrea Meador Smith @andreamsmith.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My Dreadful Body, chapter VIII: Back. “As Mama aged, her back began aching frequently: the hours spent washing floors, windows… though she never complained since anyway, how could that pain be compared to the pain from my father's blows?” 😭📚 #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody #WomenInTranslation

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I decided that after the operation I had to buy myself some red high heeled shoes that clacked when I walked. 👠👠👠 #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

But most of them looked ruefully at beautiful bikinis and shimmering dresses that they couldn't wear because they now belonged to men whose will was equal to Allah's. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Could a swimsuit really make a woman depraved or unworthy of respect? just as they couldn't stop existing as the objects of social pressure, others' desires, and male power. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

my mother, whose husband thrashed her out of jealousy. How much pain was hidden in the bruises underneath their scarves? #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My muscles cramped so much it was as if someone was wringing out laundry: first the trapezius muscles, later the rhomboid major and rhomboid minor muscles, and then the muscle that went up to my shoulder blade. That pain was incomparable. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody My sympathies.

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

by inflicting pain on our mother, our father inflicted pain on us, too, drowning us in her tears so scars remained not only on her exhausted body but also in our memories, destroying his good deeds as quickly as he destroyed kitchenware. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Djabborova often companies the pain of her illness to the pain of marriage in chapter 8 “Back”. #MyDreadfulBody #Djabbarova26

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

“If something hurt, I didn’t tell my parents: this was my pain, my narrative, which I didn’t want to share with anyone. To a large extent, it’s thanks to the illness that they stopped asking when I was finally going to get married” (87). #MyDreadfulBody #Djabbarova26

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#MyDreadfulBody #Djabbarova26 Ch 8: Back Pain: “She’d grown used to it over the course of violent years, just as I was used to spasms, and she’d begun thinking that a pained body is a normal body, and that minor pain is just a reminder that we’re still alive” (83).

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Andrea Meador Smith @andreamsmith.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My Dreadful Body, chapter VII: Tongue. “How had it happened that the only language I could express myself in found no affectionate way to address me, instead flinging insults at me like kernels of corn…?” 🗣️💔📚 #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody #WomenInTranslation

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Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...the tongue is a muscle not unlike a pagan dancing around a campfire."

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Thomas Liam @thomasliam300.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody "...conversation was filtered through a fine screen that held back the most important, large, brave, lavish, and truthful words." (I love the choice of the word 'lavish' in this sentence.)

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

How to choose? There are gems in all of the parts!

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Andrea Meador Smith @andreamsmith.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I’m only halfway through, but so far, I like the chapter about hands the best. It’s the one that made me really reflect on my mother, aunts, grandmothers, and how they paved the way so I could use my hands to hold books and write 🙏🏻

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Writing or singing? “Writing was more complex, hence more interesting, and writing meant tearing at my skin, tearing out pieces of my own body with no painkillers at all so those pieces could populate other’s imaginations” (75). #MyDreadfulBody #Djabbarova26

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Books “were acceptable djinns…portable sanctuaries that conversed with me” (67). #MyDreadfulBody #Djabbarova26

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Barbara McVeigh @barbaramcveigh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

#MyDreadfulBody #Djabbarova26 Ch 7: Tongue “It was obvious to me as a child that if I spoke several languages there would be several different versions of me” (65). Yes, your persona changes. theconversation.com/your-persona...

theconversation.com

Your personality changes when you speak another language, but that’s not always a bad thing

Emotions are more vivid in your mother tongue, but you’re more objective when speaking a second language.

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I liked singing more than speaking because music lent new meanings to words, dressing them in new clothes. Singing also meant adding beauty to meaning and immortalizing words. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

There was always a sense of heartache in my mother's speech, as if this heartache were a stone at the very bottom of each of her sentences, though this was not simply heartache-it was heartache filled with doubt: What if I had done things differently? #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody Brutal!

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

My mother's tongue was sadness: it could be spoken in Russian, Azerbaijani, or Turkish, but it was invariably sad and it always had words for prayers, entreaties, and suras. though a sense of yearning was most important. #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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Paperpills 💊🇵🇸❤️ @paperpills10.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I'd become part of that language, but it was poisoning me like contaminted water, and the words burned like the bodies of plague victims, piercing my alien body, my Eastern woman's body, my Eastern woman's sickly, thickening body. How was I to speak of that body? #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody

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