Don’t Be Born Ugly

By Ragaa Elish

Translated by Osama Hammad

Preface

These pages are about the strangest problem in my life: ugliness. Imagine the weirdest man on earth, the ugliest face you might ever encounter. Be certain that’s me; the forever laughingstock, the forever weird. I’m always the weirdest, the most horrendous, the ugliest.

Ugliness is the notion that dominates my life and feelings. It’s where I start and where I end; it’s the station from where I depart and to which I arrive. Ugliness is the grimy ash that has collected over all the particles, aesthetics, and pleasures in my life, tinting everything a bleak gray. It’s the dark light that beams over every corner of my life, forbidding me from having a transparent, clear sight of things and people.

In these pages, I’ll try to analyze the phenomenon of ugliness as I lived it, since no one has lived ugliness the way I did—no one has felt how horrible and bloody it was like I did.

Ugliness is like a transparent prism of glass; it has multiple surfaces and angles. I’ll try to present a comprehensive panoramic view for each surface and angle of that astounding prism beaming black light in every direction through my life, completely poisoning it and destroying its aesthetics.

Continue reading: Ragaa Elish: ‘Don’t Be Born Ugly’