My Soul Has No Corners (Paperback or Softback)

Souad Labbize speaks in the name of all women who leave their homelands in order to affirm their independence.

Souad Labbize is a poet of love and exile. Born in Algeria, she lived for years in Tunisia before crossing the Mediterranean to France, where she can live as she chooses and speak in the name of all women who leave their homelands in order to affirm their independence. This introduction to the poet's work brings together two of the collections she has published in France: Drafts of Love is a linked sequence of love poems that together form the narrative of a relationship between two women, not from the beginning to the end but to a pause, while Bindle of Exile tells us "how to leave the country/lightweight." In her brief but concise poems, Souad Labbize has condensed great passion and an unyielding commitment to truth, freedom and justice.

Poetry, History, African & African American Studies, LGBTQ+ Studies, Women's Studies.

Souad Labbize was born in Algeria in 1965, and lived in Germany and Tunisia before moving to Toulouse, France. She has published a novel, J'aurais voulu être un escargot (I would have liked to be a snail, Seguier, 2011) and several poetry collections, including Brouillons amoureux (Drafts of Love, Èditions des Lisières, 2017) and more recently Je franchis les barbelés, (Climbing Over Barbed Wire, Èditions Bruno Doucey, 2019). The Centre Méditerranée den Littérature honored this last publication with the 2020 Prix de la Méditerranée de la Poésie. In 2021, she released Glisser nue sur la rampe du temps (Envers) and Enfiler la chemise de l'aïeule (HETRAIE). Very committed to the cause of equality between genders, she writes in the name of all women who choose exile in order to affirm their independence.

Susanna Lang's translations of poetry include Words in Stone by Yves Bonnefoy (University of Massachusetts Press, 1976) and Baalbek by Nohad Salameh (L'Atelier du Grand Tétras, 2021). Her translations of these and other French poets are published or forthcoming in Asymptote, Delos, Tupelo Quarterly, The Literary Review, Transference, Columbia Journal, Ezra and OOMPH! Journal. Her chapbook of original poems, Like This, was released in 2023 by Unsolicited Press, and her third full-length collection, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published by Terrapin Books in 2017. Among Other Stones: Conversations with Yves Bonnefoy, an e-chapbook of original poems and translations, was published by Mudlark in summer 2021.