December 2026
Distal #2
Translated from the French by Nathanaël
Design by world
Cover artwork by Baya
Softcover, 60 pages, 8 x 5.3 inches
ISBN: 979-8-9947789-4-4
Edition of 1,000
Printed in Lithuania
18 USD
Pre-order (ships in December)
About the book
Alfred Alexandre’s The Ballad of Leïla Khane is a poem of epic love and exile. A variation on the Persian myth of Laylâ and Majnûn, the ballad in three acts recasts the lovers’ tragic story between two cities, the ancient city of Carthage—where St. Augustine was plunged into “the effervescence of shameful loves”—and the Colombian city of Cartagena de Indias, where the poet learned that “(K)hane was, in a forgotten language, the other word for grace.” Opening each poem with the refrain “Leïla says that . . . ,” the poet traces, in her voice, the lovers’ arrivals and departures across oceans, in language’s harbors and absences, and throughout time remembered and figured anew. Against colonial erasure, the ballad becomes, with each invocation, a site of imagined return, and an echo of the archipelagic landscape of the Americas, in which their “bodies in love are like islands.”
First published in 2019, The Ballad of Leïla Khane is the first book to be translated into English by Martinican writer Alfred Alexandre, a leading voice of post-Créolité.
About the author
Alfred Alexandre is a Martinican writer whose work, marked by the question of errancy, unfolds at the intersection of several genres: fiction, theater, poetry, essay, and script. He is the artistic director of ETC Caraïbe (Écritures Théâtrales Contemporaines en Caraïbe), and co-founder of the art collective Terre d’Arts, established in Tivoli Park, Fort-de-France. As a playwright, he is also associated with the 6e Continent / Les Enfants de la mer company in Martinique, and with KS and CO – Centre dramatique Kokolampoe in Guyane.
Alexandre is the author of the novels Bord de canal (Dapper, 2004), recipient of the 2025 Prix des Amériques insulaires et de la Guyanne, Les villes assassines (Écritures, 2011), and Le bar des Amériques (Mémoire d’encrier, 2016); the theatrical texts Le Patron (Passages, 2016), recipient of the 2016 Etc_Beaumarchais award, and La nuit caribéenne (Passages, 2016); and the essay Aimé Césaire, la part intime (Mémoire d’encrier, 2014). Alexandre’s theatrical works have been gathered in the volume Noctambules (Caraïbéditions, 2026). He was awarded the 2020 Prix Carbet du Tout-Monde for his entire body of work on the occasion of the publication of La ballade de Leïla Khane and received a 2026 Afrique en Création Award for the international project, Îles et continents.
About the translator
Nathanaël is a poet, essayist, and accidental photographer. She is the author of more than forty books written in French or in English, including Tempes (Legs, 2023), recipient of the Prix international de l’invention poétique; Hatred of Translation (Nightboat, 2019); L’heure limicole (Fidel Anthelme X, 2016), recipient of the Prix International de Poésie de l’Académie Claudine de Tencin; The Middle Notebookes (Nightboat, 2015), recipient of a Publishing Triangle Award; and … s’arrête ? Je (L’Hexagone, 2008), recipient of the Prix Alain-Grandbois. Her work has been recognized by fellowships from PEN America, the Centre national du livre (CNL), Conseil des arts du Canada, Direction des affaires culturelles (DAC) Martinique, and Terre d’Arts/ETC Caraïbe.
Nathanaël is also a prolific translator, including of works by Maryse Condé, Édouard Glissant, Monchoachi, Catherine Mavrikakis, Frédérique Guétat-Liviani, Chantal Neveu, and Hilda Hilst (in collaboration with Rachel Gontijo Araújo). She worked in dialogue with the filmmaker on the English subtitles for Monchoachi La Parole Sovaj’ by Arlette Pacquit, with whom she is preparing a book of interviews, Andidan (CARA, 2026). Nathanaël teaches in the Low Residency MFA program at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, and the École des Arts et Cultures at the Université du Québec in Outaouais.