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The biography and bibliography (in Italian) of Hassan Najmi, one of the last great Moroccan poets
Biography
Born on 7 March 1960 in Ben Ahmed, Morocco, in the 1980s he graduated in Arabic literature at the Mohammed V University of Rabat, then obtaining a PhD in literature with a thesis on oral poetry and traditional Moroccan music. From that moment he dedicated himself entirely to writing, both from a journalistic and poetic point of view. Thanks to his great work in the literary field, in 1996 he founded, together with Mohammed Bennis, Mohammed Bentalha and Salah Bousrif, the House of Moroccan Poetry, an association that promotes Moroccan poetry at a national and international level. From 1998 to 2005 he was president of the Moroccan Writers’ Union, while since 2018 he has been president of the Moroccan section of Pen International, an association of writers aimed at defending freedom of expression.
Bibliography (in Italian)
At the moment, there are 4 works by Hassan Najmi translated into Italian:
“L’idea del fiume” published by the publishing house AstArte (2023)
Can a real river become the symbol, the idea, the person? The idea of the river is a poetic collection entirely dedicated to a single river, the Abou Regreg which flows between Rabat and Salé, and which Hassan Najmi observes, especially at night, from the balcony. As Rosita Copioli underlines in the Preface, after water and night, the word balcony is the most frequent in this book: it is in fact the fixed point of view, the one from which the process of the view begins which overlooks the river, towards the mouth of Salé, but what derives from it is a continuous movement, a vacillation, a coming and going, a dialectic of systole-diastole of the heart.
“In disparte e altre poesie” published by the publishing house AstArte (2021)
In disparte e altre poesie is a collection of poems written between 2002 and 2006 (Rabat and Settat), accompanied by some unpublished poems that are added to this Italian edition. In these verses the poet recalls some characters from recent history, evokes old memories including some travels and memories of his childhood, and finally meditates on the question of death, life and exile.
“Il sorriso dell’alchimista” published by Di Felice edizioni (2016)
Il sorriso dell’alchimista is an anthology (with parallel text in Arabic) that collects some of the most significant poems by Hassan Najmi, an interesting voice in the Moroccan poetic world. The poems, very evocative and suggestive, are taken from the anthologies En aparté and Un male come l’amore, with the addition of four unpublished works that enrich this collection. Characterized by a complete literary identity, his poems take inspiration from everyday life to transform it into precious intuitions. The peculiarity of the verbal images and the marked introspective imprint of his poetry are striking.
Technically, “Le bagnanti e una eternità breve” was also published in Italian, but it is out of print and I couldn’t even find the plot; it was published in Italian in 1990 by the Kimerik publishing house and the first text by Najmi to have been translated into Italian.
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