The World's Embrace

Compelling poems from one of the most prolific and critically acclaimed of contemporary North African writers. Imprisoned for many years by the Moroccan authorities, Laabi'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. Abdellatif Laabi was born in 1942 in Fez. In 1966, he founded the avant-garde literary and artistic journal Souffles, which helped spark a literary and artistic renaissance through North Africa. Imprisoned for seven years in the '70s for his political beliefs and his writings, he has lived in Paris since 1985. His latest book, a novel, will be published this year by Gallimard.