Hédi Kaddour

Hedi Kaddour’s poetry arises from observation, from situations both ordinary and emblematic-of contemporary life, of human stubbornness, human invention, or human cruelty. The poetries of several languages and literary traditions are lively and constant presences in the work of Hedi Kaddour, a Parisian as well as a Germanist and an Arabist. A walker’s, a watcher’s, and a listener’s poems, his sonnet-shaped vignettes often include a line or two of dialogue that turns his observations and each poem itself into a kind of miniature theater piece. Favoring compact, classical models over long verse forms, Kaddour questions the structures of syntax and the limits of poetic form, combining elements of both international modernism and postmodernism with great sophistication. Hedi Kaddour is the author of five books of poems, two novels, and a book of nonfiction. (Photo credit: AFP Photo/Joel Saget.)