'Urging for the Forgiving Margins': Recovering the Poetry of Iliassa Sequin

Iliassa Sequin (1938-2019) was a poet who wrote prolifically, yet published sparingly and despite an international constellation of prominent champions of her work remains largely unknown.

My project will recover Sequin's published and unpublished work through a combination of bibliographic, biographical and archival research, as well as translation.

I will show how her work troubles categories of national identity and gendered authorship, and I will contextualise her writing life within the geographically diverse networks that supported her. This project aims to situate Iliassa Sequin as a significant and key missing poet from avant-garde narratives.