Two Half Faces - Softcover

Stitou, Mustafa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1646050312 ISBN 13: 9781646050314

Publisher: Phoneme Media, 2021

Synopsis

In his first English-language collection, Moroccan-Dutch poet Mustafa Stitou marks his position as one of the most important poets of his generation. Two Half Faces collects work from across Stitou’s career as he grapples in his poetry with his position in a changing reality. Stitou brilliantly parlays his relationship with his two homelands into a chronicle of identity, producing a vital account of cultural friction in poems that range from narrative to lyrical. Humor and seriousness go hand in hand, and the everyday combines with the surreal and the sublime to form a vibrant tension. This collection charts Stitou’s progress as a poet of emotion and intellect, one who poignantly illuminates the ambiguities of cultural identities, and the intersections of our inner and outer worlds.

About this title

About the Authors

Mustafa Stitou was born in Tetouan, Morocco, in 1974, and grew up in Lelystad, in the Netherlands. He currently lives in Amsterdam, where he studied philosophy at the UvA. He has published four collections of poetry: Mijn vormen (My Forms, 1994), Mijn gedichten (My Poems, 1998), Varkensroze ansichten (Pig-Pink Picture Postcards, 2003), and Tempel (Temple, 2013). He is the recipient of the VSB Poetry Prize, the Jan Campert Prize, the Awater Poetry Prize, and the A. Roland Holst Award.

David Colmer is the translator of more than 60 book-length works of Dutch-language literature, including titles by Gerbrand Bakker, Dimitri Verhulst, Annie M.G. Schmidt, and Nachoem M. Wijnberg. Colmer has won many prizes for his translations, including the Vondel Prize, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the NSW Premier and PEN Translation Prize for his body of work, and the Dutch Foundation for Literature oeuvre prize.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CINEMA in a time
of all-consuming drought
in a time
when farmer does his sums
take straw to a car
abandoned on his land

Father leaves as a child
with his uncle the deserter
for nine pesetas in the back
of the camiona―armpits
off the metal―going to Tétouan,
tiny Tétouan with its reliable souk

in the rigor of the mosque’s austerity
they pray sluggish and sighing
after jobs in gnawing sun
drink water from the water seller
with the sad grin and cool off
in the Spanish cinema with sunflower seeds

it rained in the movie
Allah al Akbar it rained
rain rain rain and I thought
rain was falling everywhere outside
Father acts it out fidgeting
with the remote control

outside
stone trembles
wind melts
lips harden to beaks
and people die
that sun-drenched summer

Edition details

• Publisher: Phoneme Media
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1646050312
• ISBN 13: 9781646050314
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220