The Body of the Condemned: Memory and Resistance in Abdellatif Laâbi’s Carceral Poetry

The Years of Lead represent one of the darkest periods in Moroccan postcolonial history. This era has, however, generated a rich corpus of carceral literature that gained prominence in the 1990s due to the relatively open political climate that tolerated dissenting voices and allowed the revisiting of the nation’s troubled past. Abdellatif Laâbi’s carceral poetry, while part of this broader corpus, stands apart for its immediacy and distinctive corporeal poetics. Through close readings of his key carceral texts, particularly “Tu parles ou on te tue,” “Soleils aux arrêts,” this article examines how Laâbi deploys the body as a dual site of memory and resistance, drawing on Fanon’s concept of the colonized body and Foucault’s notion of the “carceral archipelago.” The article argues that Laâbi’s carceral poetry constructs a new political imagination, positioning the imprisoned body along two interconnected axes: as a living archive that preserves Morocco’s collective memory and contests official historiography, and as a locus of resistance where solidarity, agency, and secular mysticism enable transcendence. Instead of pursuing vindictive justice, Laâbi’s carceral poetics of memory and resistance advance a reconciliatory vision—at once anchored in the past while gesturing toward the democratic possibilities of the future.
Keywords: carceral, Laâbi, poetry, corporeal poetics, body, collective memory, resistance.