Sunday Short: 'Damage' by Mariya Karimjee

After the fateful conversation in my bathroom, though, I learned what it was like to love someone without forgiving her. The two halves of my relationship with my mother did not match. Most days we’d go about our lives, her betrayal far from my mind. She’d groan when I turned up the radio to a song she particularly disliked, and I’d grin back at her and then sing, in the off-key, toneless voice I’d inherited from her. Other times, she’d say something entirely innocuous and I’d be filled with a murderous rage. How could someone who claimed to love me so much have done something so horrible, I wondered.

Oh, man. I have no words for this intensely moving piece by Pakistani American writer, Mariya Karimjee on female genital mutilation. The feature beautifully and tragically captures the anger and isolation caused by FGM, but also that of change and generational differences between Mariya, her mother and grandmother. Wonderful writing.

You can read 'Damage' by Mariya Karimjee over at The Big Round Table.