I write these words / J'écris ces mots is a fascinating volume of poetry that examines the world of a woman born in Tunisia but living in Toronto, and women's universal struggle to find their place in the world. Poems explore the roles woman play in diverse societies and cultures and draw the reader in with gentle, probing verses that beguile with their beauty, but challenge with their meaning. Sometimes the reader travels in the present, sometimes in the past, into the world of a woman and poet who is pulled in many directions.

Born in Tunisia, Lélia Young immigrated to Canada in 1968. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of French Studies, York University, in Toronto. She is the author of several poetry books in French, including: Entre l'outil et la matière (1993); Si loin des cypress (1999); Aquarelles, La paix comme un poème (2006); and Réverbères (2007). In 2009, she organized a conference on the topic of Francophone poetry in North America, in 2009, and a book of the proceedings Langages Poétiques et poésie francophone en Amérique du Nord (Poetic Languages and Francophone Poetry in Nord America) is forthcoming. She is also the founder and director of an international research network focused on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary Francophone studies in literature (C-RICEFM). I write these words/ j'écris ces mots is her first bilingual volume of selected poetry.

Lélia Young's profile page

Christine Tipper holds a Ph.D. and a Masters in French literary translation from the University of Exeter, England, and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and of the Conseil International d'Études Francophones. She works as a freelance interpreter, translator and a freelance teacher of translating and interpreting on Masters programmes at the University of Bath. She has translated several authors for Guernica including Changing Shores by Nadine Ltaif, Evelyne Wilwerth's Smile, you're getting old, and Danielle Fournier's We Come From The Same Light.

Christine Tipper's profile page

"Lélia Young's poetry is a meditation, a prayer of sorts, not about the sacred world, but about the need to cogitate about the real, everyday world. These poems are insinuated by a woman sitting at a desk, writing by candlelight, while the rest of the family is asleep, pondering her place in a society she finds puzzling, cruel, violent. The poet desires, but never imposes her will. Lélia Young whispers more than screams her tears, fears, wishes during these moments of intimacy. Hers is the fragility of the poem."--Antonio D'Alfonso