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Publication
[Madrid]: Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo, 1995, 236 [1] p., 19 cm
Description
His magisterial prose and poetry have won Abdellatif La bi successively France's Prix Goncourt and the Grand Prix de la Francophonie from the Acad mie Fran aise. Rue du Retour brings to the English reader the full drama and intensity of the poet's thought and words in this account of his return to life and hope after torture and then more than eight years in a Moroccan prison. He now lives in exile in Paris, but is honoured in his home country of Morocco, in France and throughout the Maghreb as a towering literary figure --combining poetry, politics, translation, fostering creativity and younger talents male and female, in Arabic and in French.
User reviews
LibraryThing member labfs39
Moroccan poet Abdellatif Laâbi was arrested in 1972 for "crimes of opinion" expressed in his poetry and the literary journals he had founded. He was tortured, imprisoned, released, rearrested, and finally, after several hunger strikes, given a trial in which he was sentenced to ten years
[Rue du Retour] is a short work, only 180 pages, but is emotionally dense and draining. It begins Free. Old salt of the prison seas. You are free. Like a refrain, this image recurs as his memories overwhelm him then recede, leaving him ashore, but forever marked by his sojourn. At first, his focus continually shifts back and forth between the present and prison, but slowly he spends more time in the present and reflecting rather than reliving. One note: he writes in the second person when referring to himself.
You experienced a first moulting, then a second. Each day on waking up you left in your bed an old skin which detached itself from you during a nightmare where you traversed one cave after another, cellars of executed criminals, where you came to a halt at the last moment at the edge of a precipice whose bottom you could not see. It was not a single paralysed or atrophied limb that you had to re-educate slowly through massage and gradual exercise. You needed time to fit together the two separated parts of your being, to stitch them together. You needed time to look, feel, hear and touch with the ordinary faculties of a man who can cross the road nonchalantly...
The decision to write of his experiences was not an easy one for Laâbi. Even when locked in his tiny cell, he felt that his fate was communal. That not only did he continue to be one of many suffering prisoners, but that his country itself was a fellow prisoner.
Those doubts and the great anxiety would assail you because you had always refused to be a literary bureaucrat and an exorcist of your individual ghosts. Because for you there has never been any question of shutting yourself up in a confessional to reconstitute a shadow theatre of your private hells. To write, even when you believed your cry would rise above all the others, was like a public scalping, an ordeal. You lived it and performed it with the others. The blood and the sweat of your anonymous brothers was the incense whose smoke rose from your unruly brain and allowed "the demon of poetry" to speak with your voice and to give it the timbre of popular outcry, the unbearable clamour of last judgements and of shipwrecks. To write was to collide, body against body, to march in the march. You would never get out unscathed.
Despite this communal intent, Laâbi's writing is intensely personal and emotive. In the book, he refers to his wife as "Awdah", Arabic for "return". She plays an important role both in the way he experiences imprisonment and in his reintegration. He often addresses her in the most private of tones, but at the same time as his means of Awdah/return. The interplay of the personal and the public blurs boundaries, much as his writing (a mix of poetry and prose) blurs lines of genre, and his mixed use of Arabic and French blur notions of nationality and colonialism. The book is a memoir, a political statement, a philosophy, and a cry for peace and hope for his homeland.
[Rue du Retour] is the type of book that benefits from close reading, rereads, and discussion. There is so much packed into its small package. I read the autobiographical novel of his childhood, [The Bottom of the Jar], shortly after this, and it was interesting to compare the stark, philosophical tone of the first with the happy, nostalgic feel of the second. In addition, at least two collections of his poetry have been translated into English.
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imprisonment. International organizations such as Amnesty International and the French PEN group mounted a campaign on his behalf, and Laâbi was released after eight and a half years. His passport was taken and he was denied work, but eventually, again with the aid of other writers, he was allowed to emigrate to France, where he lives with his wife and children. This book, which translates to "the road back", is an account not of his time in prison, per se, but of his release and readjustment to society. His prison experiences are glimpsed in flashbacks which haunt him in the days, weeks, and years after his release.[Rue du Retour] is a short work, only 180 pages, but is emotionally dense and draining. It begins Free. Old salt of the prison seas. You are free. Like a refrain, this image recurs as his memories overwhelm him then recede, leaving him ashore, but forever marked by his sojourn. At first, his focus continually shifts back and forth between the present and prison, but slowly he spends more time in the present and reflecting rather than reliving. One note: he writes in the second person when referring to himself.
You experienced a first moulting, then a second. Each day on waking up you left in your bed an old skin which detached itself from you during a nightmare where you traversed one cave after another, cellars of executed criminals, where you came to a halt at the last moment at the edge of a precipice whose bottom you could not see. It was not a single paralysed or atrophied limb that you had to re-educate slowly through massage and gradual exercise. You needed time to fit together the two separated parts of your being, to stitch them together. You needed time to look, feel, hear and touch with the ordinary faculties of a man who can cross the road nonchalantly...
The decision to write of his experiences was not an easy one for Laâbi. Even when locked in his tiny cell, he felt that his fate was communal. That not only did he continue to be one of many suffering prisoners, but that his country itself was a fellow prisoner.
Those doubts and the great anxiety would assail you because you had always refused to be a literary bureaucrat and an exorcist of your individual ghosts. Because for you there has never been any question of shutting yourself up in a confessional to reconstitute a shadow theatre of your private hells. To write, even when you believed your cry would rise above all the others, was like a public scalping, an ordeal. You lived it and performed it with the others. The blood and the sweat of your anonymous brothers was the incense whose smoke rose from your unruly brain and allowed "the demon of poetry" to speak with your voice and to give it the timbre of popular outcry, the unbearable clamour of last judgements and of shipwrecks. To write was to collide, body against body, to march in the march. You would never get out unscathed.
Despite this communal intent, Laâbi's writing is intensely personal and emotive. In the book, he refers to his wife as "Awdah", Arabic for "return". She plays an important role both in the way he experiences imprisonment and in his reintegration. He often addresses her in the most private of tones, but at the same time as his means of Awdah/return. The interplay of the personal and the public blurs boundaries, much as his writing (a mix of poetry and prose) blurs lines of genre, and his mixed use of Arabic and French blur notions of nationality and colonialism. The book is a memoir, a political statement, a philosophy, and a cry for peace and hope for his homeland.
[Rue du Retour] is the type of book that benefits from close reading, rereads, and discussion. There is so much packed into its small package. I read the autobiographical novel of his childhood, [The Bottom of the Jar], shortly after this, and it was interesting to compare the stark, philosophical tone of the first with the happy, nostalgic feel of the second. In addition, at least two collections of his poetry have been translated into English.
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LibraryThing member GlebtheDancer
This was an early contender for a 'book of the year' for me. Laabi was a socialist writer and commentator in the 1960s and 70s. The newly independent Moroccan government was trying to forge an identity as a 'western' state and, in doing so, cracked down heavily on elements that it felt didn't
Rue du Retour is not, however, a political piece about Morocco or Laabi's own views. It is instead a long essay on imprisonment, torture and, most prominently, the elation and disappointments of release. He recalls his arrest and initial torture with some anger, and writes touchingly about the camaraderie he found in his cell. Where Rue du Retour is really outstanding is in its examination of the relationship between the prisoner and his wife on the outside. Laabi writes of his insecurities, his hopes and his faith in his wife, and of her wait for a release that may never come. Despite the obviously politicised setting, this is at heart a beautiful book about human frailty and human strength. It is about Laabi the man, not Laabi the prisoner,and yet is the deepest examination of what it means to be both a man and a prisoner that I have ever read. Superb.
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support this identity, including Islamic and Communist groups. Laabi was one of many arrested tortured and jailed (in his case for almost a decade). Rue du Retour is not, however, a political piece about Morocco or Laabi's own views. It is instead a long essay on imprisonment, torture and, most prominently, the elation and disappointments of release. He recalls his arrest and initial torture with some anger, and writes touchingly about the camaraderie he found in his cell. Where Rue du Retour is really outstanding is in its examination of the relationship between the prisoner and his wife on the outside. Laabi writes of his insecurities, his hopes and his faith in his wife, and of her wait for a release that may never come. Despite the obviously politicised setting, this is at heart a beautiful book about human frailty and human strength. It is about Laabi the man, not Laabi the prisoner,and yet is the deepest examination of what it means to be both a man and a prisoner that I have ever read. Superb.
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Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1982
Physical description
236, 1 p.; 19 cm
ISBN
8487198228 / 9788487198229