When it comes to the challenges of the actual process, I soldier on as best I can, on my own. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Challenges Copy Share Image
I don't like poems that invent memories, I have enough of my own. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Poetry either pulses with real life or it's just an aborted simulacra. There's no middle ground. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Life Copy Share Image
Fear knows no borders, and the terminology of hate has seeped into every aspect of life. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
As Trevor Noah recently quipped, the US appears ready to crown its first African dictator: Donald Trump. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
To be a political poet means simply to be a poet, and any poet worth their salt will be a political animal… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Animal Copy Share Image
One cannot simply decide to write apolitical poetry, in the way one decides to drink lemonade instead of tea, it's far more… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Apolitical Copy Share Image
Meanwhile, the disgruntled "natives" of the West remain empty-handed and keep baying for blood, stuck on the caboose of the train, like… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Most of us have been subjected to terrible political poetry at least once or twice in our lifetimes, and so we tend… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I'm of the opinion that poetry is always political, and cannot help but be so, regardless of the poet's intent, given that… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
The West is anxious about becoming another Africa, and it has dug deep moats in the hopes of preventing that, but it's… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Africa Copy Share Image
As the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe has presciently pointed out, neoliberal corporate globalism threatens to exploit that advantage like never before, and… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Achilles Copy Share Image
The average political poem - especially the kind that wears this label all too proudly - is both dull and full of… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Generally risk-averse, specialist translation imprints have also hollowed out a fairly comfortable niche for themselves: they get ninety percent of the profits… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
The real question should be: what makes a good political poem? The possible answers to that question are both obvious and yet… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
In a sense, I never got over Robert Lowell's History. A flawed, infinitely brilliant project I never tire of going back to.… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I'm mostly surprised by the fact he's still alive; given that people have been trying to silence him for almost fifty years,… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Alive Copy Share Image
Some of my colleagues are surprised by how little personal interaction I've had with "my" authors, but I don't translate to go… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Books Copy Share Image
Abdellatif [Laâbi] was wildly popular with his students and it wasn't difficult to see why: like them, he knew that average Moroccans… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Whenever poetry and politics are mentioned in the same breath, we tend to miss the point entirely - as I often have… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
[Abdellatif Laâbi] was a poet and worked as a high school teacher; and although he hadn't broken any laws, the Moroccan government… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Everyone wants to be open and inclusive, but nobody wants to pay for it. It's the biggest roadblock to translating living writers,… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Life Copy Share Image
Translators who choose to work on canonized writers can usually lean on an extensive critical apparatus around either the author or the… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Balzac Copy Share Image
I've heard of translators collaborating closely with their authors, sometimes even living with them for a while, but that's not me. — Andre Naffis-Sahely Books Copy Share Image
I can't quite see the point of poems like "Wittgenstein Goes for a Walk with A Hawk in Sherwood Forest." I know… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Clever Copy Share Image
That boom town [Abu Dhabi] proved to be the reef against which my family crashed, the story of many who seek the… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Family Copy Share Image
Take Western nations on both sides of the Atlantic, where xenophobic demagogues have been allowed to turn the law-abiding workers who prop… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
Dealing with politically-engaged writers of color like Abdellatif Laâbi and Rashid Boudjedra - who ran away from school aged sixteen to fight… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Chance Copy Share Image
Regardless of whether the authors I've translated have been "dead and canonized," or "living and established," or even simply "emerging," I must… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Copy Share Image
I came to poetry at fourteen, in the middle of a booming oil-rush town in southern Arabia without a single public library:… — Andre Naffis-Sahely Arabia Copy Share Image
![“I'm mostly surprised by the fact he's still alive; given that people have been trying to silence him for almost fifty years, he really shouldn't be. Aged thirty, Abdellatif [Laâbi's ] was kidnapped from his home in Rabat by plainclothes policemen, bundled into the back of an unmarked car, driven…” quote by Andre Naffis-Sahely](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/5aa/andre-naffis-sahely-20813_alive_i-m-mostly-surprised-by-the-fact-he-s-st_3145689.jpg)
![“Abdellatif [Laâbi] was wildly popular with his students and it wasn't difficult to see why: like them, he knew that average Moroccans were hungry, jobless and desperate. They also knew they were ruled by a paranoid king who was more comfortable with Parisian financiers than his own subjects.” quote by Andre Naffis-Sahely](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/b63/andre-naffis-sahely-20813_average_abdellatif-la-bi-was-wildly-popular-with_1000659.jpg)
![“[Abdellatif Laâbi] was a poet and worked as a high school teacher; and although he hadn't broken any laws, the Moroccan government was determined to "gag" him - I use the term specifically since one of my favorite sequences of his is entitled "The Poem Beneath The Gag."” quote by Andre Naffis-Sahely](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/83d/andre-naffis-sahely-20813_broken_abdellatif-la-bi-was-a-poet-and-worked-a_1533931.jpg)
![“Translators who choose to work on canonized writers can usually lean on an extensive critical apparatus around either the author or the book in question, especially in the case of writers like [Honore] Balzac and [Emil] Zola.” quote by Andre Naffis-Sahely](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/dae/andre-naffis-sahely-20813_balzac_translators-who-choose-to-work-on-canoni_67754.jpg)
![“That boom town [Abu Dhabi] proved to be the reef against which my family crashed, the story of many who seek the promised land, and my poetry is a versification of that personal history. History is all I have.” quote by Andre Naffis-Sahely](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/b48/andre-naffis-sahely-20813_family_that-boom-town-abu-dhabi-proved-to-be-th_623350.jpg)
