Galiot Press: I'll Look Myself in the Eyes by Rim Battal (translated by Liza Tripp)
🌷Book Launch for I’LL LOOK MYSELF IN THE EYES by Rim Battal, translated by Liza Tripp 🌷
Join us at Accent Sisters to celebrate the launch of I’ll Look Myself in the Eyes (Je me regarderai dans les yeux), an ode to women’s rebellion. In this autobiographical novel, Battal offers a nuanced reflection of feminine relationships and, at times, generational complicity with patriarchal structures in early 2000s Morocco, where she grew up.
Joining Battal will be translator Liza Tripp, who will discuss the translation and editorial process behind I’ll Look Myself in the Eyes, Galiot Press's first translated work.
Doors @ 6:30 PM
Start @ 7 PM with readings followed by a conversation + Q&A
About the readers
Rim Battal is a poet, journalist, and artist. She is the author of multiple poetry collections in French, including L’eau de bain, Pommes girl, and X et excès, and the autobiographical novel Je me regarderai dans les yeux, which recently won the 2025 prix de la littérature arabe des lycéens and was a finalist for the main Arab literature prize in France. The book will be published in English this November as I’ll Look Myself in the Eyes (Galiot Press, translated by Liza Tripp). Battal splits her time between Paris and Rabat.
Liza Tripp is a translator based in Centerport, NY and Rockport, MA. Recent translations include Rim Battal’s I’ll Look Myself in the Eyes (Galiot Press), and Hélène Hérault's One Way (Silent Clamor Press). Liza has also translated numerous non-fiction books for publishers including Rizzoli, Assouline, and Schiffer Books. Her poetry translations have appeared in the Cordite Poetry Review and the International Poetry Review. She recently received a 2026 Villa Albertine translation grant for Rim Battal’s L'eau de bain.
About the Book
Seventeen-year-old Rim is caught smoking out her window in her home in Marrakesh, Morocco. This minor transgression unleashes the fury of her mother who flies into a rage and demands that Rim complete a gynecological test certifying her virginity. Shocked and hurt, Rim pushes back in the only way she can. So begins a nuanced journey into the tangled web of a patriarchal society in which various generations of women seem to complicitly preserve the status quo. Ultimately, it is Rim who breaks the cycle of dysfunction, rebels against tradition, confronts betrayal from the women closest to her, and dares to be her true self. Unflinching and humorous, this is an autobiographical novel told through the deeply engaging voice of a young girl on the cusp of womanhood.
– "A deeply powerful story." Marjan Kamali, New York Times best selling author of The Lion Women of Tehran