Habib Tengour

Césure - VI.

Language: french

Translations: german (Zäsur - VI.)

Césure - VI.

Elle n’a jamais quitté cette trace qui se lit dans la roche quelquefois. Chacun localise là où une nostalgie le presse. Pour la décrire tu invoques les arbres et la faune à l’entour. Tous les patelins d’Arabie, et leurs fleurs précoces et leurs bourrasques y passent.

Une géographie idéale où les stations s’équivalent. Les femmes de la tribu sont belles et inaccessibles. Le désir violent moque ton ardeur. Il dérive sans rete-nue dans la joute. Il y a aussi le vin rouge et les algarades.

« Et l’amour ? Comment cela se passe, dans le désert ? Car ces gens aiment par-dessus tout ! »

Le poète se fie à sa technique et l’étendue du vocabulaire. Il a toute une année pour accomplir sa tâche.

Habib Tengour

photo © gezett.de

* 29.03.1947, Mostaganem, Algeria
lives in: Paris, France

Habib Tengour (*1947 in Mostaganem, Algeria) is a poet, novelist and essayist living in Paris. He is the prototype of a Maghrebian migrant.. Tengour says of himself, 'Exile is my profession.' He describes the singularity of the Maghreb like this: 'There may be a clearly-defined place called Maghreb, but the Maghrebian is always somewhere else. And only there is where he realises himself.' This attitude is reflected in his work. His poems circle unceasingly around the subject of living in exile and the cultural identity of Algeria. The heroes of his texts, like he himself, straddle the boundaries of East and West, between tradion and the modern. As an academic, too, Tengour addresses the problems of migration and migrants, focussing on Algerian mine workers. He has published numerous books, and his most recent publication to appear in German is the verse collection “Seelenperlmutt”.

photo © gezett.de

Tengour’s works available in English translation include the poetry collection “Empedokles’s Sandal” (1999), and the narrative poem “The Old Man of the Mountain,” contained in Pierre Joris’ book 4X1 (2003).

Tengour holds a chair in Sociology at the Université d'Evry.

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