UK reviews

'Benameur is not interested in reclaiming the purity or origin of a homeland or language…The line carries a silent activism without the polemics of radicalism, insisting that belonging is not an achieved state but a continual negotiation with imperfection. In meeting this distinct language politic, Johnston’s translation carries its mediations with great restrain; his English feels porous, attuned to the spaces between words, leading the reader easily through the shifts from internal monologues to philosophical idea… In French letters, Benameur’s invocation of Isis joins a long, distinctly feminine lineage of mythic rewriting, including Hélène Cixous’s 'The Laugh of the Medusa’ and its feminist call to women to write for themselves and reclaim their bodies. Through Benameur’s project runs along a similar vein, it is here quieter, less insurgent… In a literary culture and activism often obsessed with visibility and forceful voices, Benameur insists on tenderness as a mode of resistance.' – Asymptote

back to book