I Will Not Fold These Maps

Mona Kareem is a stateless poet, born in Kuwait, whose work has been internationally acclaimed for its power and immediacy ever since she published her first collection at the age of 14.

This World Poet Series book, translated into English by the poet and translator Sara Elkamel, brings together poems from Kareem’s three collections as well as new, unpublished pieces. It centres on themes that recur frequently in Kareem’s poetry – exile, estrangement, city life, the journey to womanhood – offering an overview of Kareem’s 20-year poetry career, in English, for the first time.