The World's Embrace: Selected Poems

Description

Compelling poems from one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed of contemporary North African writers. Imprisoned for many years by the Moroccan authorities, Labi's poetry is haunted by memories of torture and prisons and bears witness to his preoccupations with - and resistance to - the growing international sickness of state-supported inhumanity.

"No/this is not a time for dreams/ A dream is indecent/and useless/as the poet's tears," writes Abdellatif Laabi in a stanza revealing one of the many facets of The World's Embrace. Translated by various hands, and edited with an introduction by Victor Reinking and a foreword by Ammiel Alcalay, this book selects from six collections by the Moroccan poet and novelist who has lived in Paris since 1985, following a term as a political prisoner." - Publishers Weekly, June 23, 2003