Emma Ramadan

American translator

Emma Ramadan

Emma Ramadan

Emma Ramadan is a literary translator based in Providence, Rhode Island. She is the recipient of a PEN/Heim grant, an NEA Translation Fellowship, and a Fulbright for her work on Bouanani.

cover image of the book The Shutters

The Shutters

by Ahmed Bouanani

Translated by Emma Ramadan

The Shutters collects the two most important poetry collections—“The Shutters” and “Photograms”—by the legendary Moroccan writer Ahmed Bouanani. By intertwining myth and tradition with the familiar objects and smells of his lived present, Bouanani reconstructs vivid images of Morocco’s past. He weaves together references to the Second World War, the Spanish and French protectorates, the Rif War, dead soldiers, prisoners, and poets screaming in their tombs with mouths full of dirt. His poetry, written in an imposed language with a “strange alphabet,” bravely confronts the violence of his country’s history—particularly during the period of les années de plomb, the years of lead—all of which bears the brutal imprint of colonization. As Bouanani writes, “These memories retrace the seasons of a country that was quickly forgetful of its past, indifferent to its present, constantly turning its back on the future.”

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