Acclaimed French-language poet of the Palestinian diaspora Olivia Elias probes deeply into the upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her English-language debut, Chaos, Crossing is a powerful chronicle of uprootedness, of times marked by inequality, injustice, and disconnection.
Olivia Elias
“One has first to lose faith in words, these poems suggest, then grapple with each word, each line break, their placement on the page, in order to regroup them. Kareem James Abu-Zeid’s translation conveys Elias’s tension and urgency, asking us to stop at each word and to approach one of her central questions: is it possible that too much rage kills rage?” —Ahmad Almallah
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Olivia Elias
, Poet of the Palestinian diaspora, born in Haifa in 1944, Olivia Elias writes in French. As a child she lived in Lebanon where her family had taken refuge in 1948. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Montréal, Canada,... Read more
, Poet of the Palestinian diaspora, born in Haifa in 1944, Olivia Elias writes in French. As a child she lived in Lebanon where her family had taken refuge in 1948. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Montréal, Canada, and later settled in France. Her third poetry collection, Chaos, Traversée appeared in 2019. Characterized by terse, laconic language and strong rhythms, her poetry shows a deep sensitivity to the Palestinian cause, the plight of refugees and human suffering in general. Her work has been translated into English, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Slovenian and Japanese, and has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Chaos, Crossing, an extended bilingual version of the French book translated by Kareem James Abu Zeid, marks her debut collection in English. Published by World Poetry in 2022, it was a finalist of the 2024 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation. She is also the author of the chapbook Your Name, Palestine, a long poem translated by Sarah Riggs and Jérémy Robert (World Poetry, 2023). Read less
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