Maram al-Masri here gives voice and presence to women, and some young boys, who are in one way or another mysterious to us - not just because they are 'other' but because they mainly live in a cultural community whose codes and conventions are opaque to Europeans. Mostly but not exclusively Muslim, many of the characters whose real or imagined lives she discloses endure in quiet desperation. Maram al-Masri's gift is to evoke these disparate lives with clarity, brevity and compassion. BAREFOOT SOULS is a chronicle of lives untold; it is also a negotiation between the known and the unknown, a generous service in poetry to our often surprising common humanity.

Translated by: Theo Dorgan