[11/17/26] Khaïr-Eddine, Mohammed: Quasars

World Poetry, paperback

Translated by Jake Syersak

Publication Date: November 17, 2026

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The last poetry collection of Moroccan writer Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine (1941–1995) is both a fiery warning and a luminous cry for transformation hurled into some of history’s darkest shadows. Threading myth and geopolitics, ancestral ritual and atomic physics, Quasars rages across Morocco, Haiti, Algeria, Rwanda, Palestine, and beyond—unearthing the psychic wreckage of colonialism and authoritarian rule. Khaïr-Eddine’s poetic incantations—prophetic, hallucinatory, razor-sharp—cut through the void of a silent universe, burning beyond elegy to kindle a spark of renewal. Composed mostly in 1994, during the final year of his life, these texts ignite an unrelenting blaze of cosmic revolt.

“These are Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s final poems, written while ill in Rabat after a life of restless wandering. As usual, his sovereign verve, his solidarity with the downtrodden, and his closeness to the earth pervade the ‘rolling tides’ of his lines. But there is also an expansive cosmology at play that gives the book its spiritual leanings. These tales are full of prophets and demons. They depict a world suspended between utter ruin and incomplete rebirth under ‘the celestial glow / of tunneling meteors.’ They appeal to myth and memory as antidotes to the ‘flawless arrow’ of time, to ‘miseries more deadly than hunger.’ There is great maturity not only to the poems, but to the English translations; and Khalid Lyamlahy provides a richly textured introduction.” —Omar Berrada

“Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine was one of the first among us to understand that poetry couldn't jump into the heat of battle and then settle for collecting watchwords.” —Tahar Ben Jelloun

“Khaïr-Eddine can be summed up in one word: intensity. A fierce intensity or an intense fierceness—it was often impossible to decide which it was. Here was someone totally gathered around, or rather, in a single point of focus, from inside out: a solar intensity … twin to the desert sun of his birthplace.” —Pierre Joris

“Khaïr-Eddine writes extravagantly and vividly, capturing the language and traditions of the Amazigh, describing their daily customs, festivals, creation stories, and origin myths.” —Regina Keil-Sagawe

“The most compelling writer of the post-Souffles generation, Khair-Eddine extols a poetics of violence to be carried out against all established orders and conventions—language, society, religion, and morality.” —Hédi Abdel-Jaouad