Poetry
Mer ouverte
Not translated into English
Hamid Tibouchi · 1973
Synopsis
Short poems without punctuation, in which everyday life turns to emptiness. The clock stops, thoughts cease, images cease, and the man finds himself pierced in the manner of Magritte: through the hole one sees the sky and the clouds. The book moves on in this way, from one open image to the next, never closing.
Context
The book was published in Paris by Bruno Durocher, at Éditions Caractères, in the very year that Jean Sénac, who carried this generation on his shoulders, was murdered at home in Algiers, stabbed five times. Its author was then teaching English in the suburbs of the capital and contributing texts to the Tunisian review Alif, while already painting. The two activities were never separated for him: he says that painting and writing are one and the same thing by two different means, and he has since illustrated dozens of books, several of them by Algerian poets.
Who it is for
A slim volume in French, in free verse and without punctuation. It helps to know that the author is also a painter, and that these pages read like traced lines rather than like sentences.
Prizes and reception
In 1984 Tahar Djaout regarded its author as one of the most demanding poets of his generation, and the anthologies of the decade have included him.