Poetic Genealogy of North African Literature

Thomas C. Connolly is an associate professor of French at Yale University. He is the author of Paul Celan’s Unfinished Poetics: Readings in the Sous-Oeuvre.

“What makes Thomas Connolly’s book radically new is his focus on the poetic production of French-speaking writers from the Maghreb. The originality of this study is that it allows us to read works anew that we thought were ‘classified’ or saturated, and to create the space of a site that is capable of expressing its idiosyncrasy. What is certain is that we are dealing here with a border text—un texte-frontiÈre—which will be a landmark through which we will have to go to fully read and teach poetic literature.” —RÉda BensmaÏa, Brown University “Connolly demonstrates mastery of several poetic traditions: Arabic, European, French, and Francophone. Erudite and critically creative, this book helps develop new ways of reading and interpreting North African Francophone poetry in comparative perspective, delicately transgressing certain limits of interpretation within the field.” —Maya Boutaghou, University of Virginia

• Introduction: Lyric Liberties 1. Kabyle Rhapsody: Jean Amrouche and the Makings of Modern Maghrebi Lyric 2. Orpheus, pied noir: Jean SÉnac and the Poetics of Algerian Becoming 3. Rhythm-Chaos: Mohammed KhaÏr-Eddine's Secret Music 4. Berber Spider: Tahar Djaout, Arachne, and the Afterlife of Oral Poetics 5. The Hustle: Syntax and Other Scruples in the Poetic Works of AbdelkÉbir Khatibi 6. Corporeal Fantasies, False Bodies: Ways of Seeing with Abdelwahab Meddeb 7. Qur'anic Visions: Arthur Rimbaud and the Artificial Vertigo of Flowers Conclusion: A Poetic Genealogy of Modern Maghrebi Literature in French