ISBN: 978-0811227841

Paperback: 172 pages
Publisher: New Directions Publishing, 2018
Language: English
Product Dimensions: 13.5 x 1.3 x 20.3 cm

The Shutters collects the two most important poetry collections–“The Shutters” and “Photograms”–by the legendary Moroccan writer and filmmaker 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.”