{"product_id":"alexandre-alfred-the-balladpb","title":"[12\/01\/26] Alexandre, Alfred: The Ballad of Leïla Khane","description":"\u003cp\u003eWendy's Subway, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTranslated by Nathanaël\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: December 1, 2026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing: \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlfred Alexandre’s\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Ballad of Leïla Khane\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a poem of epic love and exile. A variation on the Persian myth of Laylâ and Majnûn, the ballad in three acts recasts the lovers’ tragic story between two cities, the ancient city of Carthage—where St. Augustine was plunged into “the effervescence of shameful loves”—and the Colombian city of Cartagena de Indias, where the poet learned that “\u003cem\u003e(K)hane\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewas, in a forgotten language, the other word for grace.” Opening each poem with the refrain “Leïla says that . . . ,” the poet traces, in her voice, the lovers’ arrivals and departures across oceans, in language’s harbors and absences, and throughout time remembered and figured anew. Against colonial erasure, the ballad becomes, with each invocation, a site of imagined return, and an echo of the archipelagic landscape of the Americas, in which their “bodies in love are like islands.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst published in 2019,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Ballad of Leïla Khane\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis the first book to be translated into English by Martinican writer Alfred Alexandre, a leading voice of post-Créolité.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46086951436311,"sku":"9798994778944","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/files\/1793150953-900.jpg?v=1794179686","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/alexandre-alfred-the-balladpb","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}