Mouna OUAFIK

Mouna Ouafik is a Moroccan poet and writer.
 

She has published three collections of poetry: Brown Vanilla, Dar Azmina, Jordan (the book was banned, the publisher prosecuted and then released); Red Neon, Dar Alnahda, Beirut; Sharp edge of a half-broken plate, Dar Rawafid, Cairo.
And two collections of short stories: Mint, wax and death, Dar Sharqiyyat, Cairo; Lo3ab.com, Dar Afaq, Cairo.
 

Her writings are strongly autobiographical. In them, she radically puts into practice the principle that a poet's only work is poetry. As a result, she leads an intense and precarious life as an unemployed poetess, with no permanent home and no income other than occasional. She says of herself that she is "here to write her life, her life that burns and that she herself burns in order to write." "I'm passionate about love and I believe deeply in love. For me, the most important thing is for human beings to discover the far-flung corners of their souls. Whether he loves a woman, a man, an animal or a chair: it doesn't matter!!!"
 

She is currently completing a vast autobiographical collection entitled From the Female Chimpanzee to Darwin. A "different kind of autobiography", she says. The poems speak of her "own relationship to God, Islam, Satan, Eve, Adam and even Darwin, to her mother, to sex, to love." Poetry without posturing or provocation: just uncompromising in following a poetic ideal. But most certainly burning. Once again, without any provocation: "Mouna is like that" says poet Soukaina Habiballah...

For the Shaeirat Project she created the stand-up performance From the Female Chimpanzee to Darwin

​