The World's Embrace: Selected Poems

by Abdellatif Laâbi, Victor Reinking, Anne George

Compelling poems from one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed of contemporary North African writers. Imprisoned for many years by the Moroccan authorities, Laâbi’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.

Genres: Poetry, Morocco

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

Arabic: عبد اللطيف اللعبي

Abdellatif Laâbi is a Moroccan poet, born in 1942 in Fes, Morocco.

Laâbi, then teaching French, founded with other poets the artistic journal Souffles, an important literary review in 1966. It was considered as a meeting point of some poets who felt the emergency of a poetic stand and revival, but which, very quickly, crystallized all Moroccan creative energies: painters, film-makers, men of theatre, researchers and thinkers. It was banned in 1972, but throughout its short life, it opened up to cultures from other countries of the Maghreb and those of the Third World.

Abdellatif Laâbi was imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to ten years in prison for "crimes of opinion" (for his political beliefs and his writings) and served a sentence from 1972-1980. He was, in 1985, forced into exile in France.[2]

Reviews

[Samira Abed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a smaller version of this I bought at The Poetry Project's all day poetry marathon in NYC for $5. I should have stolen it, because this book is too incredible for my stupid monies.

I also think I don't have this specific edition of The World's Embrace. Mine is maybe 50 pages, crammed with poems, and published by Souffles Press 2000 (which I believe is the name of Abdellatif's original publishing firm in Morocco?).

So much incredible beauty here, and pain. I would love to read a Foucauldian analysis of this. Guards everywhere, what is the war? renaming of places, an "I" that is miserable and tortured, but also seeks and feels an frenetic purpose to seek the infinite and dialogue.

I find this type of writing so important. A willingness to attach an importance to the individual, but not aggrandize suffering is so rare. It's so easy to go one way or another.

[Hubert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really unique voice in poetry - I found this in City Lights bookshop years ago (City Lights also published the book). Poems primarily from the early 90s period, when he was living in Paris. Laâbi is concerned with the deep questions - where we are from, where we ultimately are going in the world, and how are journeys are impacted by deep forces beyond one's control. Many of the poems are dedicated to fellow dissidents; one was dedicated to someone who was murdered by National Front nationalists. I'm not extremely fluent in French, but did my best to read both the original and the translation (laid out in left page / right page format, original on left hand side, translations on right hand side).

Highly recommended.

[Amun (Mohamed Elbadwihi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just OK. The translation sucked.