Lavender Ink / Diálogos, paperback
Translated by Jake Syersak
Publication Date: June 16, 2025
Publisher Marketing:
Sun Scars is the first English-language translation of Moroccan-born francophone author Tahar Ben Jelloun’s earliest poetry. Originally published in 1972, this work remains a timeless scorched-earth indictment against those who would cower in “the fault-lines of… silence” while profiteers of political, economic, and religious orders trample a nation. Armed to the teeth with a vitriolic, surreal linguistic, Ben Jelloun chews away the fantastical vision of Morocco as a sun-drenched tourist’s daydream of pay-as-you-play exotica, revealing a people and a landscape writhing in agony just beneath the surface. With seismic finesse and lyrical vision, Sun Scars declares it bad faith to see anything but: “you’ve just got to drag yourself by the tip of your tongue-tied-ness by the pupil of your eyes / what’s unthinkable.”
