Saqi Books

Gable House, 18-24 Turnham Green Terrace, London w4 1QP
www.saqibooks.com
First published in English in hardback by Saqi Books 2024
Published in French as Un homme sans titre by Éditions Gallimard 2022
Copyright © Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 2022, 2024
Translation © William Rodarmor 2024
Xavier Le Clerc has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and P

The ultimate goal of the Sufi is to become one with the invisible, that is, the absolute

would have been easier than for them to come to an agreement to bring

influence of immigrants who had come in large numbers from the Muslim areas of the empire. The second half of the 16th century was a period of rapid expansion

‘In the midst of what is going on now, it is hard, when you sit down at a desk, to feel that morning after morning spent fiddling with words and rhythms is a justified activity.’

Poetry cannot afford ‘to lose its fundamentally self-delighting inventiveness, its joy in being a process of language as well as a representation of things in the world.’

‘If I write love poems, I resist the conditions that don’t allow me to write love poems.’

‘I know they’re strong and can invade and kill anyone. But they can’t break or occupy my words.’

But the individual fighter is not a soldier in the presence of the one he loves

someone has to be absent to lighten the burden of the place.