Abdellatif Laabi – författare

Finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2020. Winner of an English PEN Award. Beyond the Barbed Wire is a selection of work by Morocco's greatest living poet. Abdellatif Laabi's poetry and literary activism has inspired a generation of writers and thinkers, and it resulted in his decade-long imprisonment. This volume gives a career-spanning overview of Laabi's poetry, from the late 1960s to the 2010s. It includes a generous selection of the prison-writings of the 1970s, poems that speak from 'beyond the borders of what is human', as the poet writes, a hinterland of physical and emotional torture, in which hunger strikes are 'the only weapon we've left'. Among these is a poem addressed to the poet's cell, which is 'right here / inside me / like a second body', and another written piecemeal to friends on the outside and later reassembled. Beyond the Barbed Wire pays testament to the human need to speak in the face of censorship, that 'epic of silence'. These poems, Laabi's 'bitter fruits of the murderous twilight', renew the possibility of a poetry that is genuinely urgent, necessary: a poetry of anger, anguish, love, wit, and hope, touched by a philosopher's vision and perspicuity.The book includes an interview with the poet in which he discusses his practice, his views on education, his beliefs about a poet's duty, the influence of his parents, and his optimism. With Laabi's renewed prominence in the Moroccan intellectual scene following the Arab Spring, and with a new generation of artists and activists looking to him as a source of inspiration, this book shows why Laabi is more than Morocco's leading poet, but also a guiding cultural and political force.

För boksidans omutliga spegel går det inte att ljuga Med Osäkerhetsprincipen introduceras den marockanske poeten Abdellatif Laâbi (f. 1942) på svenska i översättning av Bo Gustavsson. Laâbi är en av samtidens mest betydande kulturpersonligheter och en litterär legend i sitt hemland. Som grundare av och redaktör för tidskriften Souffles var han med och lade grunden till den moderna marockanska kulturen. På sjuttiotalet tillbringade han åtta år i fängelse för sitt politiska engagemang, någonting han återvänder till i Osäkerhetsprincipen. Sedan decennier lever han i exil i Paris. Han skriver på franska och har tilldelats Franska Akademiens stora pris (Grand prix de littérature de l'Académie française) och Goncourtpriset för poesi (Prix Goncourt de la poésie).

"För boksidans omutliga spegelgår det inte att ljuga"Med Osäkerhetsprincipen introduceras den marockanske poeten Abdellatif Laâbi på svenska i översättning av Bo Gustavsson. Laâbi är en av samtidens mest betydande kulturpersonligheter och en litterär legend i sitt hemland. Som grundare av och redaktör för tidskriften Souffles var han med och lade grunden till den moderna marockanska kulturen. På sjuttiotalet tillbringade han åtta år i fängelse för sitt politiska engagemang, någonting han återvänder till i Osäkerhetsprincipen. Sedan decennier lever han i exil i Paris. Han skriver på franska och har tilldelats Franska Akademiens stora pris (Grand prix de littérature de l'Académie française) och Goncourtpriset för poesi (Prix Goncourt de la poésie).

In front of the mirror of the chaste page, it is impossible to lie. I now know that no scientific calculation, no supernatural intelligence, will be able to enlighten me while I am alive about the secret of the universe. In front of this secret, even poetry that is adventurous to the point of extremism must surrender with all honesty. Therefore, I will die a fool.

The twenty-six Gazan voices, both male and female, that we present in this anthology cannot tolerate being drowned out by external voices, even if they come from people with the most sincere feelings of solidarity and goodwill. These voices would obscure the power of their voices, obscuring their stuttering, their hissing, and their bouts of silence before a reality in which words are emptied of their essence. These voices do not require our learned analyses, nor even the barest minimum of our condemnation. From them, we can humbly accept that they shout in our faces: "Shut up! Let us speak. We have something to say to the world, and we will say it with all our might, in a battlefield that poetry has never touched."