Overview

A slim, emotionally and thematically rich book of poetry, a grammar of the world is Les Fugitives' first poetry publication and Jeanne Benameur's second book published in English, offering a new and more personal look into her own history and writing practice. For Jeanne Benameur, the Egyptian goddess Isis is a sister who advances with her along the seashore. Like her, poetry responds to life's call where the blue of the sky mingles with the blue of the sea. She is unity rediscovered. Drawing on subjects as diverse as the author's childhood traumatic flight from the Algerian War of Independence in the late 1950s, the modern migrant crisis, the transformative power of writing, the freedom of second-language literacy, and the long history of the Mediterranean, a grammar of the world is brought into harmony by the central mythological figure, who personifies a careful reknitting of the world and repairing of ancient wounds through the act of writing

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9781068300110

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Reviews

Praise for a grammar of the world: 'In Jeanne Benameur's language all is fluttering, gentle and stirring. Places are foremost, they precede us, then history settles in and written words unfurl.' -Cecile Coulon, author of A Beast in Paradise 'Jeanne is a thinker: even when she dances, she thinks. She has Atlantic thoughts that also turn towards the Aegean Sea, which is to say that, for her, the backwash of Algerian history flows back into the sea of inner feelings.' - Yasmine Chouaki, Radio France Internationale Praise for The Child Who: 'Prose that approximates the condition of poetry.' - Michael Cronin, Irish Times 'A short, emotionally charged book.' - Aaron Peck, Times Literary Supplement 'Jeanne Benameur writes with uncommon beauty.' - Ronan Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul 'Beautifully explores the power and powerlessness of language' - Tash Aw, author of Strangers on a Pier 'Mystical. A slow hand walking you into a forest.' - Tice Cin, author of Keeping the House

Author Information

Jeanne Benameur was born in Algeria to Italian and Tunisian-Algerian parents in 1952. The family fled the country right before the official declaration of the Algerian War of Independence, and moved to La Rochelle, in France, where Jeanne grew up. After her first poetry collection, Naissance de l'oubli (1987), came several novels for young adults, inspired by her experience as a teacher in Paris inner city secondary schools. In 2002, she received the UNICEF Prize for her novella Les Demeurees, which would be loosely adapted for ARTE television twenty years later. A bestselling and prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, she has won multiple national and regional readers' awards. Her work is frequently adapted for the stage and music performances and has been translated into several European languages.

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