Mohamed Ali Yousfi is a Tunisian writer and translator. After obtaining his master’s degree in philosophy and social sciences, he completed his postgraduate studies in the Lebanese University. He publishes first in Tunis and in a later stage in the Middle East (Amman, Beirut and Damascus).
His first novel appeared in 1992: The time for elves (prize for best Arabic novel in 1992). His second novel Sun tiles was published five years later (prize for best novel of Tunisia 1997).
He also proposes an original interpretation of the texts concerning the Palestinian intifada in a book of literary criticism The Alphabet of the stone. But he mainly translates various authors in Arabic: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Miguel Angel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier, Shichiro Fukazawa, Álvaro Cepeda Samudio, Christine Bruet, Octavio Paz, an anthology of Greek poetry, biography of Nikos Kazantzakis, The Beginnings of the bourgeois philosophy of Max Horkheimer and Balzac and realism french Georg Lukács.
Other publications: Edge of the earth poetry, The Night of ancestors poetry, A sixth woman for the senses poetry, The kingdom of al-Oukhaidar novel, Yesterday, Beirut novel, Dentella novel and Thresholds of paradise novel.
Other translations: Emil Cioran: Fragments chosen, Georges Bataille: Theory of religion, Dai Sijie: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Guy de Maupassant: From Tunis to Kairouan, Roger Icart: The French Revolution on the screen, Eric Leguèbe: A century of french cinema, Trails wind (choice of poems) by Pierre Emmanuel, Rene Char, Alain Bosquet and Eugene Guillevic
This is our dire medium, our old sea
It is in the middle of nothing but geography
The flank of the wave still welcomes the slaves
But today they
Volunteer in the boats of death screaming:
Where is the slaver?
*
The pirates, however, still sail
But
In one way, only.
Mohamed Ali Yousfi
© Translated by Onsi Yousfi
Published with the permission of Mohamed Ali Yousfi