Jean Sénac: The Bearers of News

 

Introduction

Jean Sénac (1926-1973) was a Francophone Algerian poet and correspondent of Albert Camus.  Many of his poems, such as this one, deal with the struggle for Algerian independence.  His murder remains unsolved to this day.

The persons mentioned in this poem are Henri Alleg (1921-2013), a journalist who was arrested and tortured by the French government; Djamila Bouhired (b. 1935), a revolutionary who, at the time of this poem (1957), had been sentenced to death for an alleged terrorist bombing, though her sentence was later commuted to prison time; and Larbi Ben M'hidi (1923-1957), a prominent revolutionary and founder of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), who had recently been arrested, tortured, and executed by the French government.

This poem was written in 1957 and first published in Sénac's collection Matinale de mon peuple (1961).


The Bearers of News

How beautiful are the bearers of news!

They will say: “Peace in Algeria!”

We will know that Henri Alleg is free,

Djamila Bouhired living!

(O violenter light

than the torturers’ electrodes,

than the flashing of cleavers at dawn!)


They will say: “Your mother smiles.

In her hair the war has forgotten its cinders,

but she takes pleasure in the tricks of her comb!”


And the image of Ben M’hidi will be

like a cornerstone,

like cement,

five fingers against error.


We will know that the day is rising

triumphantly,

and that a new blood is rising,

veins and pipelines,

to animate the body of the people.


How beautiful are the bearers of news!

How they come to astonish the heart,

and how they go about repeating:

“There was the ruin, and there is the nest.”


Source: Jean Sénac, Œuvres poétiques (Arles: Actes Sud, 1999), 335.

Translation ©2024 B.P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.

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