Myths and Traffic Lights

Alara Adilow (b. 1988) is an award-winning Dutch poet of Somali origin, living in Amsterdam. She shot to fame with this debut collection, written during her transition from man to woman. Adilow explores concepts of gender ('nobody has ever seen a real woman'), she writes about the mismatch between body and consciousness, and brings into focus the harsh realities confronting her on a daily basis: 'I just want to do my shopping as a woman' and not 'as if I'm a post-feminist work of art.' Blending the raw and the lyrical, this passionate and erudite collection takes the reader on a wild journey, where speaker and surroundings are constantly being redefined. 'In the evening I sew new fabrics onto the representations of woman that I bought in a second-hand shop. Some are threadbare, some brand-new; never worn, thrown out in flawless condition. Perhaps they didn't suit the wearer, or they were too expensive. Some were dusty and covered in grease and bloodstains, dried up milk, so I had to clean them but then the colours and structures of some representations faded. They say: nobody knows what a woman really is, and nobody has ever seen a real woman.' (from 'Craftwork')