Poetry
Sur les soleils de Houroud
Not translated into English
Chehem Watta · 1997
Synopsis
A collection of poems placed, according to its publisher, under the sign of the body and the plant world, as Pèlerin d'errance, published the same year, was under that of walking and stones. Houroud is the plant powder with which women of the Horn of Africa paint their faces to make the skin soft and luminous, a mask that may hide an inner fire; set against it, the men's khat gives only a brief, artificial euphoria. The poetry fixes in words the trembling of body and mind.
Context
Published in Paris by L'Harmattan in September 1997, the collection appeared the same year as Pèlerin d'errance, from the same publisher. Hibo Moumin Assoweh places Chehem Watta among the authors who, in the 1990s, in turn publish in French, after William Syad's collections and the single book of the 1980s. The African Poetry Digital Portal of the University of Nebraska also cites a Rimbaud l'Africain by him, and counts him among the francophone poets of the country, born in Djibouti in 1962.
Who it is for
A short collection of eighty pages, published by L'Harmattan; no translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
The International Writing Program of the University of Iowa, which hosted him in 2010, describes him as an award-winning poet.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.