a grammar of the world is a poetry collection by Jeanne Benameur and a meditation on exile, language, writing and identity which takes as inspiration the myths of Ancient Egypt.
Drawing on subjects as diverse as the author’s traumatic childhood flight from the Algerian War of Independence, the modern migrant crisis, the transformative power of writing, and for a child, of literacy, and the long history of the Mediterranean, a grammar of the world is brought into harmony by the central figure of the Egyptian goddess, who personifies a careful re-knitting of the world and repairing of ancient wounds through the act of writing.
Jeanne Benameur is a prolific and bestselling novelist in France, where her first book, the poetry collection Naissance de l’oubli, was published in 1987.