Reviews of Without an Alphabet, Without a Face

“PEN and the Lannan Translation Series and, above all, Khaled Mattawa are to be congratulated for this introduction to the poetry of Youssef, a contribution to the literature of the world.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“This is superbly achieved poetry and very good translation. Indeed if the translations are anything to go by, the poetry in this volume is one of the high achievements of lyric seriousness in the contemporary world.” —Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature

“This moving collection is a gorgeous introduction to Youssef’s poems as well as a moving commentary on the politics of our world and the task of poets in it. Faced with political catastrophe Youssef refuses to give up a personal take on the world. The integrity and the real singularity of his perspective are obvious. Even so he manages to address the terrible loss and willful misuse of power that plague the lives of many people. Mattawa and Graywolf Press have done a great service in providing these translations. We are now honored to have Youssef’s poems as part of our literary tradition.” —Poet Lore

“The richness and accessibility, as well as the breadth and depth, of this collection turn this book into a work for all seasons and for all readers.” —Al-Ahram Weekly

“Handsomely edited and contextualized, as we say these days, here is a substantial representation of the works of one of the most powerful writers of the Arab world. There is everything to be learned and not a little to be enjoyed in these ‘released’ poems, in translation so liberal and so lively. It is a grand opportunity to let in another ray of light upon a darkness all too indeterminate.” —Richard Howard

“The book is a double blessing—the incandescent poetry of the master Saadi Youssef, translated to perfection by another master poet, our own Khaled Mattawa.” —Leslie Marmon Silko

“Khaled Mattawa has done Anglophone readers a great service in giving to us this magisterial translation showing the breadth of the ongoing life’s work of a major poet. Saadi Youssef was born in Iraq, but he has become, through the vicissitudes of history and the cosmopolitan appetites of his mind, a poet, not only of the Arab world, but of the human universe. He has lived in and communicated with the cultures and literatures of Algeria, Lebanon, France, Greece, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, and this dialogue engages and informs his poetry. These poems are urban and lyrical, engaged in the signal struggles of our era (including the long one of the Palestinian people for self-determination), but radiating at the same time a humanist universalism attained through intense attention to the particular. Khaled Mattawa is himself a bilingual poet of great gifts, and he has re-created Yousef’s texts as powerful and inimitable poems in English.” —Marilyn Hacker