Synopses & Reviews
Few of us have had the opportunity to visit Djibouti, the small crook of a country strategically located in the Horn of Africa, which makes
The Nomads, My Brothers, Go Out to Drink from the Big Dipper all the more seductive. In his first collection of poetry, the critically acclaimed writer Abdourahman A. Waberi writes passionately about his countrys landscape, drawing for us pictures of desert furrows of fire” and a yellow chameleon sky.” Waberis poems take us to unexpected spacesin exile, in the muezzins call, and where morning dew is sucked up by the eye of the sunblack often, pink from time to time.”
Translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson, Waberis voice is intelligent, at times ironic, and always appealing. His poems strongly condemn the civil wars that have plagued East Africa and advocate tolerance and peace. In this compact volume, such ideas live side by side as a rosary for the treasures of Timbuktu, destroyed by Islamic extremists, and a poem dedicated to Edmond Jabès, the Jewish writer and poet born in Cairo.
With Waberi, the juxtapositionssurprising, provocative, and originalform a good part of the thrill themselves.”Words Without Borders
Review
“Exhilarating and instructive. . . . This is a powerful, courageous, inventive novel.”Le Matricule des Anges
Review
"This brief, sternly loving book is by turns troubling, exhilarating, frustrating and oddly satisfying. Recommended to all those concerned with the world we live inand ones we might otherwise live in, as well as people inhabiting both."Jim Lee, Tales of the Talisman
Review
"Exhilarating and instructive. . . . This is a powerful, courageous, inventive novel."-Le Matricule des Anges
Review
“Along with the impertinent funny stuff that peppers the text, this book is above all a philosophical tale that gives a caustic critique of contemporary civilization through a distorting mirror.”Le Devoir
Review
“Humor and derision are weapons not often used in African literature. Abdourahman Waberi proves to be a master of the art which adds a cutting edge to his magnificent narrative.”Maryse Condé, author of The Story of the Cannibal Woman
Review
http://nebraskapress.typepad.com/university_of_nebraska_pr/2009/02/index.html
Review
“Waberi wittily destroys a whole series of clichés and prejudices about Africaquestionable views about immigration as well as the unhealthy side of humanitarian aid organizations draped in arrogance. . . . But this novel is also full of hope.”Le Monde Diplomatique
Review
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/client/pagesdetails.asp?nid=39053&ccid=13
Review
“[Waberis] hilarious parable makes Africa the main world power, suffering from a plague of immigration [from “Euramerica”] that makes it think of closing its borders. . . . The world upside down? Reality seen from the other side of the mirror sometimes gives us the shivers.”Le Point
Review
"The world Waberi creates in his new novel may be entirely driven by the question of "what if", but it has the natural and wonderful effect of making the reader re-examine what is. Waberis keen powers of empathy, his sharp wisdom and his beautiful prose make him one of the most exciting and original African writers working today."Laila Lalami, www.TheNational.ae
Review
http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/talks/conference/paris-and-london-in-postcolonial-imagery.html -- Norman Manea
Review
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/blogosphere/16101-lalami-waberi.html -- institut francais
Review
http://nebraskapress.typepad.com/university_of_nebraska_pr/2009/07/speaking-of-summer-reading-lists.html -- World Literature Today
Review
“Novelist Waberi, the best-known contemporary writer from the East African nation of Djibouti, evokes ‘an entire life in the echo of my tongue’ in his first collection of poems. His terse sequences incorporate the region’s recent troubles with civil wars and Islamic extremists along with ancient fable and history. The Koranic story of Bilal recurs as a myth of national origin; the poet asks us to ‘let nomadic words live,’ with ‘oral ancestors’ shadow/ resisting harsh winters.’ Sometimes Waberi returns to the landscape: ‘my tree the aloe/ my flower the crack in the cactus/ my river none in my land.’ But his verse, in its trim stanzas and its thin lists, insists on its modernity too.”
Synopsis
In a literary reversal as deadly serious as it is wickedly satiric, this novel by the acclaimed French-speaking African writer Abdourahman A. Waberi turns the fortunes of the world upside down. On this reimagined globe a stream of sorry humanity flows from the West, from the slums of America and the squalor of Europe, to escape poverty and desperation in the prosperous United States of Africa. It is in this world that an African doctor on a humanitarian mission to France adopts a child. Now a young artist, this girl, Malaïka, travels to the troubled land of her birth in hope of finding her mother—and perhaps something of her lost self. Her search, at times funny and strange, is also deeply poignant, reminding us at every moment of the turns of fate we call truth.
Synopsis
In this first collection of poetry by critically acclaimed writer Abdourahman A. Waberi, we the readers can drink in Djiboutis compelling landscapedesert furrows of fire, mute foliage of cactus, yellow chameleon skyto better understand this tiny country strategically located in the Horn of Africa. Waberis poems take us to spaces where nomadic words livein exile, in the muezzins call, in a place where morning dew is sucked up by the eye of the sunblack often, pink from time to time.
Waberis voice is intelligent as well as ironic, and always appealing. He strongly condemns the civil wars that have plagued the East African region. His is a message of tolerance, and we find in this compact volume, living side by side, a rosary for the treasures of Timbuktu, destroyed by Islamic extremists, and a poem dedicated to Edmond Jabès, the Jewish writer and poet born in Cairo.
About the Author
Abdourahman A. Waberi was born in Djibouti in 1965 and has lived in France since 1985. He has published numerous books, articles, and stories. His first collection of short stories, Le Pays Sans Ombre (published in English as The Land without Shadows) won Belgiums Royal Academy of French Language and Literature Grand Prix. J. M. G. Le Clézio recognized and paid tribute to Waberi in his 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature lecture. David and Nicole Ball, both independent translators in Northampton, Massachusetts, have published several translations separately, as well as together, including Lascaux: A Work of Memory. David Ball won the Modern Language Associations prize for literary translation in 1996. Percival Everett, professor of creative writing at the University of California-Riverside, is the author of many novels, including, most recently, The Water Cure.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements The Way of Simplicity
Engravings
Caravan of Words
Here Is
Litany
Wind is a Calligrapher
Equipment
Ouabain
Miniatures
Brief Discourse in the Style of Edmond Jabés
Ink Drawings
Sketch I
Sketch II
Canvas with Ochre and Foam
Night Collage
Untitled Canvas
Time
Predawn
Every Desire
Desires
Caress
Truce
Untitled
Postcards
The Elixir of Exile
Landmark
After the Rain
Acacia
A Sky Chart
Coral Riffs
Lament of the Lame Herdsman
Infancy
There
Bilal
Anatomy (She-Camel)
By Night
Japanese Cherry Tree
Eight Faces
Yesterday’s Tales
Tombeau
Shattered Vision
Grieving Dawn
Elegy for a Fly
Ai-yai-yai
Dharma
White Thread, Black Thread
Rosary for Timbuktu
Notes