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- Book Synopsis
- Vengeance particular soldiers disfigured the face of my beloved dead for having believed freedom possible the Berlin Wall fell far from us even as we were singing of an earlier victory so very quickly confiscated I've no desire to beg pardon Of my torturers - as if! - I've no desire to close my eyes Soleïman Adel Guémar's poetry is powerfully lucid, moving and sometimes shocking. Rooted in Algerian experience, it speaks of urgent concerns everywhere - oppression, resistance, state violence, traumas and private dreams. As Lisa Appignianesi writes in her introduction to this selection of Guémar's poetry: "Deceptively casual, colloquial in their idiom, always dramatic in their pessimism, Guémar's poems are a searing howl against the brutality which invades everyday Algerian life.… This volume marks an important moment: a record from the inside of a history which is too palpably of our times. Where before we had only newspaper headlines or the dry reports of NGOs, we now have a living voice, both political and lyrical - an intensely individual voice which speaks out freely and traces the lineaments of a tragic history." Soleïman Adel Guémar was born in 1963 into a left-wing political family of Berber ancestry. He spent 2 years in France working in publishing, then, at the promise of free national elections, returned to Algeria in 1991 to work for (among others) the weekly newspaper L'Evènement. The elections were cancelled when an Islamist party won a landslide at local elections and L'Evènement was banned. For 10 years, Guémar worked in Algeria as a freelance journalist and publisher, but fell foul of the regime and was subjected to a campaign of violent intimidation. In December 2002, he arrived at Heathrow, claiming political asylum and, two years later, was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, where he now lives with his family in South Wales.
- About The Author
- Soleiman Adel Gumar was born and raised in Algiers. He was heading for an army career when he quit his engineering studies to spend two years in Paris working in publishing. He returned to Algiers in 1991 amid signs of democratization, in order to work as a journalist, initially on 'L'Evenement' and then freelance. Besides reporting on corruption and human rights abuses, he also published numerous stories and won two national poetry prizes. A generous selection of his poems appeared in the Parisian journal 'Algerie Litterature / Action' in 2002. By the end of that year he had had to leave Algeria to seek safety for himself and his family in the UK. Tom Cheesman lectures in German at Swansea University. In 2003 he founded non-profit Hafan Books to publish writing by refugees and asylum seekers, alongside work by other writers in Wales (www.hafan.org). His poetry translations include Manfred Peter Hein's 'Between Winter and Winter' (University of Iceland, 2006). John Goodby lectures in English at Swansea University, specializing in Irish and Welsh writing in English. His poetry publications include 'A Birmingham Yank' (Arc, 1998) and an experimental translation of Heinrich Heine's 'Germany: A Winter's Tale' (Smokestack, 2005).Lisa Appignanesi is a novelist, writer, broadcaster and documentary producer. Her fictions include 'The Memory Man', which draws on her acclaimed family memoir 'Losing the Dead', and the best-selling psychological thrillers 'Sanctuary' and 'The Dead of Winter'. She co-authored 'Freud's Women' and co-edited 'The Rushdie File'. Formerly Deputy Director of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, she has been Deputy President of English PEN since 2004 and ran the successful "Free Expression is No Offence" campaign against the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
- Product Details
-
- ISBN
- 9781904614395
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- Arc Publications, (07 August 2007)
- Number of Pages
- 161
- Weight
- 233 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 216 x 132 x 14 mm
- Series:
- See all books in this series
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