Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine - Quasars
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Bilingual Edition
152 pages
November 17, 2026
ISBN 978-1-954218-53-6
Distributed by
Asterism Books (US)
Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine
Quasars
Translated from French by
JAKE SYERSAK
Introduction by
KHALID LYAMLAHY
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.
“The poet 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 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
“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
Moroccan Amazigh poet MOHAMMED KHAÏR-EDDINE (1941–1995) was one of the major Francophone avant-garde figures of his generation, renowned for his Surrealist-inspired “linguistic guerrilla warfare,” which he developed throughout numerous works of prose and poetry. With Abdellatif Laâbi and Mostafa Nissabouri, he helped found the avant-garde Moroccan journal, Souffles-Anfas, before he was compelled to self-exile in 1965. Khaïr-Eddine lived in France until returning to Morocco in 1979. He died in 1995 in Rabat.
JAKE SYERSAK is the author of the poetry books Yield Architecture and Mantic Compost. He is also the translator of several works by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine and Tahar Ben Jelloun. He has received grants from The National Endowment of the Arts and PEN/Heim, and currently lives in Olympia, WA.
Scholar, writer, and literary critic KHALID LYAMLAHYis the author of Nostalgic Rebels: Politics, Aesthetics, and Selfhood in Postcolonial Morocco. His second novel, Évocation d’un mémorial à Venise, received a special mention from the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and was translated by Ros Schwartz as Venice Requiem (HopeRoad). He teaches North African literature at the University of Chicago.
