The Shutters
Ahmed Bouanani
(Author)
Emma Ramadan
(Translator)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
The Shutters collects the two most important poetry collections--"The Shutters" and "Photograms"--by the legendary Moroccan writer Ahmed Bouanani. By intertwining myth and tradition with the familiar objects and smells of his lived present, Bouanani reconstructs vivid images of Morocco's past. He weaves together references to the Second World War, the Spanish and French protectorates, the Rif War, dead soldiers, prisoners, and poets screaming in their tombs with mouths full of dirt. His poetry, written in an imposed language with a "strange alphabet," bravely confronts the violence of his country's history--particularly during the period of les années de plomb, the years of lead--all of which bears the brutal imprint of colonization. As Bouanani writes, "These memories retrace the seasons of a country that was quickly forgetful of its past, indifferent to its present, constantly turning its back on the future."
Product Details
Price
$16.95
$15.76
Publisher
New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publish Date
June 30, 2018
Pages
172
Dimensions
5.1 X 7.9 X 0.5 inches | 0.4 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780811227841
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
The filmmaker and writer Ahmed Bouanani (1938-2011) was born in Casablanca. When Bouanani was sixteen, during the final days of the colonial era, his father, a police officer, was assassinated--a tragedy that the artist returned to in his work for the rest of his life. Bouanani studied film at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris for three years before returning to Morocco and going on to direct several classics of North African cinema. Most of his movies had their genesis in poems, and he published three collections during his lifetime, as well as the novel The Hospital, also appearing in English for the first time with New Directions. Never keen to publish, Bouanani left behind a trove of additional manuscripts.
Emma Ramadan (translator) is the recipient of the PEN Translation Prize, the Albertine Prize, an NEA Fellowship, and a Fulbright Scholarship. Her translations include Barbara Molinard's Panics, Virginie Despentes's Pretty Things, and Abdellah Taïa's A Country for Dying. She lives in Brooklyn.
Reviews
"An atmosphere of mystery surrounds his work: Bouanani offers a precious contribution to Morocco's collective memory."
"After the collective trauma of the colonial occupation of Morocco, a vanguard of artists forged cultural practices that sought to establish a new vision of the country, appealing to its ancient traditions passed down through oral culture. Filmmaker, poet, and writer Ahmed Bouanani was a towering presence in this landscape, pioneering a cinematic and poetic language that influenced a generation to come."
Bouanani's work mocks authoritarianism and fanaticism, despairs of Morocco's democratic failure, and struggles to hold on to the cultural and historical inheritance its government is bent on erasing... A scathing, fearsome, and hallucinatory collection.
A melancholy, hallucinatory, biting meditation.-- (11/22/2018)
"After the collective trauma of the colonial occupation of Morocco, a vanguard of artists forged cultural practices that sought to establish a new vision of the country, appealing to its ancient traditions passed down through oral culture. Filmmaker, poet, and writer Ahmed Bouanani was a towering presence in this landscape, pioneering a cinematic and poetic language that influenced a generation to come."
Bouanani's work mocks authoritarianism and fanaticism, despairs of Morocco's democratic failure, and struggles to hold on to the cultural and historical inheritance its government is bent on erasing... A scathing, fearsome, and hallucinatory collection.
A melancholy, hallucinatory, biting meditation.-- (11/22/2018)
