Amina Said

B. 1953
Francophone poet, essayist, short story writer, and translator Amina Said was born in Tunis to a Tunisian father and a French mother. Said’s numerous poetry collections include Paysages, Nuit Friable (1980), Métamorphose de l'île et de la Vague (1985), and Marcher sur la Terre (1994). She has also published reinventions of Tunisian folktales and translations of Filipino writer Francisco Sionil José’s fiction from English into French. Said’s own poetry has been translated into several languages; Present Tense of the World: Poems 2000–2009 (2011, translated by Marilyn Hacker) presents a selection of her work.

Said’s honors include the Jean Malrieu Prize and the Charles Vildrac Prize. Australian composer Richard Mills incorporated her poetry into his work Songlines of the Heart’s Desire (2007). She has lived in Paris since 1978.