Abdellatif Laâbi (born 1942) is a Moroccan poet, journalist, novelist, playwright, translator and political activist.

[1] Laâbi, then teaching French, founded with other poets the artistic journal Souffles, an important literary review in 1966.

It was considered as a meeting point of some poets who felt the emergency of a poetic stand and revival, but which, very quickly, crystallized all Moroccan creative energies: painters, film-makers, men of theatre, researchers and thinkers.

[2] The political beliefs that were judged criminal are reflected in the following comment, for example: "Everything which the Arab reality offers that is generous, open and creative is crushed by regimes whose only anxiety is to perpetuate their own power and self-serving interest.

And what is often worse is to see that the West remains insensitive to the daily tragedy while at the same time accommodating, not to say supporting, the ruling classes who strangle the free will and aspirations of their people.