The Brooklyn Rail

RACHIDA MADANI was born in Tangiers, Morocco, in 1951, and still lives there, now retired from a career teaching French. A careful writer who says “I love to savor my words, especially when I find the one I need in the place it needs to be” she has published three collections of poetry since 1981 when her first book, called Femme je suis (Woman I am), came out. It was Mohamed Serifi, a high profile political prisoner who shared the poems with others in prison & encouraged Madani to publish them. “To shut up is not fair,” says Madani, but also: “I am a passive militant. I don’t know how to scream slogans or brandish banderoles. I militate with my words.” When Abdellatif Laâbi was freed from prison, Madani asked him to preface her book.” “He told me that if he did that, the book would never be published. I insisted and indeed it is because of his efforts that Femme je suis was published in France in 1981.”