My Mother's Language by Abdellatif Laâbi, trans. By André Naffis-Sahely William Plomer which move beyond the breathlessness

which move beyond the breathlessness of panic towards luminescence and solidarity

This makes for unusually clear and accessible work

to leaving one’s mark and understanding one’s place in the passage of time

and that Martin Luther King could well be speaking right here

even if we learn to name ourselves in our 'more difficult language'

My Mother's Language by Abdellatif Laâbi, trans. By André Naffis-Sahely William Plomer which move beyond the breathlessnessAbdellatif Labi is widely acknowledged to be Morocco's greatest living poet. For the last fifty years, he has produced works of unique philosophical and emotional insight that have been guided above all by a commitment to say what needed to be said. In 1972 this led to his arrest, torture and eight and a half year imprisonment. This selection features some of his most powerful shorter poems alongside a long extract from his seminal work 'Casablanca