Two Half Faces by Mustafa Stitou and translated by David Colmer

This is poetry from Morocco.

Two Half Faces by Mustafa Stitou translated by David Colmer is published by Phoneme Media. This is a Book originally written in Dutch. This was published in 2020.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781646050314E12.

Two Half Faces, by Moroccan-Dutch poet Mustafa Stitou and translated by David Colmer, belongs to that contemporary European lyric space where identity is not a stable inheritance but a series of negotiations. The title alone suggests fracture, doubling, and partial recognition, and the poems seem useful for readers interested in migration, faith, secular life, and the uneasy comedy of belonging. I would not want to read Stitou as merely representative of a hyphenated identity, because that flattens the work too quickly. Better to say that these poems make the self feel constructed under pressure: civic, intimate, historical, and bodily at once. Colmer’s translation gives English readers access to a voice alert to irony without losing the ache underneath it.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.