In the Net

by Mahmoudan Hawad, Helene Hawad (Preface), Christopher Wise (Translator)

In the face of amnesia, how does one exist? In this poem, Hawad speaks directly to Azawad, a silent figure whose name designates a portion of Tuareg lands divided among five nation-states created in the 1960s. This evanescent being, situated on the edge of the abyss and deprived of speech, space, and the right to exist, has reached such a stage of suffering, misery, and oppression that it acquiesces to the erasure implicit in the labels attached to it.

Through an avalanche of words, sounds, and gestures, Hawad attempts to free this creature from the net that ensnares it, to patch together a silhouette that is capable of standing up again, to transform pain into a breeding ground for resistance—a resistance requiring a return to the self, the imagination, and ways of thinking about the world differently. The road will be long.

Hawad uses poetry, “cartridges of old words, / a thousand and one misfires, botched, reloaded,” as a weapon of resistance.

87 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 1, 2022

About the author

Hawad, sometimes Mahmoudan Hawad, (born 1950) is a Tuareg poet and author born in the Aïr region of Niger and who currently lives and publishes from Aix-en-Provence, France. Hawad deploys a method he calls furigraphy (a play on the word calligraphy) to create space in his poetry and to illuminate certain themes. Common themes of his work include thirst, movement, wandering, anarchy, and political themes related to Tuareg politics in the region. He is married to Hélène Claudot-Hawad, a Tuareg scholar and translator of Hawad's poetry into French. He has published a number of poems, epics, and other literary works primarily in French, but translations have increased in recent years with an Arabic translation of Testament nomade by prominent Syrian poet Adunis.

Reviews

[Bogdan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have learnt more about Touareg identity and struggle for idependence than before it. I enjoyed a lot the introduction which explains the hurdles of translating this book, especially as it was written using a script used by the Berber communities.

[Laurence Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Net by Hawad presents, through a 12-part poem, a critique of the effects of French colonialism on the Tuareg in Niger. The poem, intense and unsparing in its language and imagery, conveys a defiant anger on the part of the speaker.