Overview

The Bottom of the Jar is an exploration of Laabi's childhood in his native city of Fez - a journey undertaken through the eyes of Namoussa, the narrator, who serves as Laabi's semi-fictional alter ego. Yet the novel is not only a personal testament of Laabi's early years, but is a work of great social and political import; one that reflects on and evokes the charged atmosphere during the final days of French colonial occupation of Morocco and the painful road to independence. The Bottom of the Jar is an entertaining, warm and lyrical elegy.

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9781935744603

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Reviews

'Fragments of a Forgotten Genesis' also returns us to the shared historical beginnings of poetry and religious text, the shared tools of verse and image... Though religious texts have also been famously open to widely differing interpretations, those interpretations have tended to view themselves as corrective and final. No such finality will be possible here. The richness of imagery and slewing of the narrative in more than one direction work against any such tactic. <br><br>--Alistair Noon, Blackbox Manifold

Fire. Germination. Birth. Blood. All these themes are burnished and boned image by image until they echo through Abdellatif's book.... Abdellatif Laabi, as you will see, is a member of the same cell as Dostoevsky, Hikmet, Soyinka, Cervantes... --Breyten Breytenbach, for Rue du Retour By the winner of the Goncourt Prize for Poetry The Bottom of the Jar is surely the novel I wrote with the greatest joy. --Abdellatif Laabi At once classic (in tone) and modern (in form), The Bottom of the Jar is imbued with humor and a sensibility that gives it a certain magic. The result: two hundred fifty pages of pure pleasure. --La Vie Economique A master of his art. --Le Nouvel Observateur A valuable book: inventive and philosophically amusing, it assures us that despite dark times, human virtue still shines in Maghreb with a clarity that is unquestionably brightest in the old city of Fez. --J.M.G. Le Clezio, winner of the Nobel Prize The Bottom of the Jar is an authentic and beautiful bildungsroman in which life and political struggle take place in one space, with the demand for Moroccan independence joining the need for personal emancipation in a sublime way. --Quotidien National Created with gentleness and with fury, with words that thrill the soul, that cry out with the urge to live, with hope and with suffering -- Jeune Afrique The great power and subtlety of the work lies in the fine balance it strikes between that Peter Pan-like sensitivity, vulnerability and imagination, and the brutality of the real world, history and politics. -- The Daily Star (Lebanon) Laabi's poetic voice consistently raises a song of possibilities above the dirge of cruelty. --Victor Reinking

Fire. Germination. Birth. Blood. All these themes are burnished and boned image by image until they echo through Abdellatif's book.... Abdellatif Laabi, as you will see, is a member of the same cell as Dostoevsky, Hikmet, Soyinka, Cervantes... Breyten Breytenbach, for Rue du Retour By the winner of the Goncourt Prize for Poetry The Bottom of the Jar is surely the novel I wrote with the greatest joy. Abdellatif Laabi At once classic (in tone) and modern (in form), The Bottom of the Jar is imbued with humor and a sensibility that gives it a certain magic. The result: two hundred fifty pages of pure pleasure. La Vie Economique A master of his art. Le Nouvel Observateur A valuable book: inventive and philosophically amusing, it assures us that despite dark times, human virtue still shines in Maghreb with a clarity that is unquestionably brightest in the old city of Fez. J.M.G. Le Clezio, winner of the Nobel Prize The Bottom of the Jar is an authentic and beautiful bildungsroman in which life and political struggle take place in one space, with the demand for Moroccan independence joining the need for personal emancipation in a sublime way. Quotidien National Created with gentleness and with fury, with words that thrill the soul, that cry out with the urge to live, with hope and with suffering Jeune Afrique The great power and subtlety of the work lies in the fine balance it strikes between that Peter Pan like sensitivity, vulnerability and imagination, and the brutality of the real world, history and politics. The Daily Star (Lebanon) Laabi's poetic voice consistently raises a song of possibilities above the dirge of cruelty. Victor Reinking

Fire. Germination. Birth. Blood. All these themes are burnished and boned image by image until they echo through Abdellatif's book.... Abdellatif Laabi, as you will see, is a member of the same cell as Dostoevsky, Hikmet, Soyinka, Cervantes... --Breyten Breytenbach, for Rue du Retour <br><br>By the winner of the Goncourt Prize for Poetry The Bottom of the Jar is surely the novel I wrote with the greatest joy. --Abdellatif Laabi <br><br>At once classic (in tone) and modern (in form), The Bottom of the Jar is imbued with humor and a sensibility that gives it a certain magic. The result: two hundred fifty pages of pure pleasure. --La Vie Economique <br><br>A master of his art. --Le Nouvel Observateur <br><br>A valuable book: inventive and philosophically amusing, it assures us that despite dark times, human virtue still shines in Maghreb with a clarity that is unquestionably brightest in the old city of Fez. --J.M.G. Le Clezio, winner of the Nobel Prize <br><br>The Bottom of the Jar is an authentic and beautiful bildungsroman in which life and political struggle take place in one space, with the demand for Moroccan independence joining the need for personal emancipation in a sublime way. --Quotidien National <br><br>Created with gentleness and with fury, with words that thrill the soul, that cry out with the urge to live, with hope and with suffering --Jeune Afrique <br><br>The great power and subtlety of the work lies in the fine balance it strikes between that Peter Pan-like sensitivity, vulnerability and imagination, and the brutality of the real world, history and politics. --The Daily Star (Lebanon)<br><br> Laabi's poetic voice consistently raises a song of possibilities above the dirge of cruelty. --Victor Reinking

Fire. Germination. Birth. Blood. All these themes are burnished and boned image by image until they echo through Abdellatif's book.... Abdellatif La bi, as you will see, is a member of the same cell as Dostoevsky, Hikmet, Soyinka, Cervantes... --Breyten Breytenbach, for Rue du Retour By the winner of the Goncourt Prize for Poetry The Bottom of the Jar is surely the novel I wrote with the greatest joy. --Abdellatif La bi At once classic (in tone) and modern (in form), The Bottom of the Jar is imbued with humor and a sensibility that gives it a certain magic. The result: two hundred fifty pages of pure pleasure. --La Vie Economique A master of his art. --Le Nouvel Observateur A valuable book: inventive and philosophically amusing, it assures us that despite dark times, human virtue still shines in Maghreb with a clarity that is unquestionably brightest in the old city of Fez. --J.M.G. Le Cl zio, winner of the Nobel Prize The Bottom of the Jar is an authentic and beautiful bildungsroman in which life and political struggle take place in one space, with the demand for Moroccan independence joining the need for personal emancipation in a sublime way. --Quotidien National Created with gentleness and with fury, with words that thrill the soul, that cry out with the urge to live, with hope and with suffering --Jeune Afrique The great power and subtlety of the work lies in the fine balance it strikes between that Peter Pan-like sensitivity, vulnerability and imagination, and the brutality of the real world, history and politics. --The Daily Star (Lebanon) La bi's poetic voice consistently raises a song of possibilities above the dirge of cruelty. --Victor Reinking

Author Information

Poet, novelist, playwright, translator, and political activist, Abdellatif Laâbi was born in Fez, Morocco in 1942. He was also the founder of Souffles, an important literary review that was banned in Morocco in 1972. Laâbi received the Prix Robert Ganzo de Poésie in 2008, the Prix Goncourt de la Poésie for his Oeuvres complètes in 2009, and the Académie Française's Grand Prix de la Francophonie in 2011. Also available in English are his debut collection of poetry The Rule of Barbarism, the memoir Rue de Retour, and The World's Embrace: Selected Poems. André Naffis-Sahely's translations include Laâbi's The Rule of Barbarism (Pirogue Poets Series), and Rachid Boujedra's The Barbary Figs and The Funerals (Arabia Books). His translation of Émile Zola's L'argent is forthcoming from Penguin Classics. He lives in London.

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