Poetry
A Seller of Women
Marchand de femmes
Aminata Athié · 1992
Synopsis
A short poem that opens with a question to the passer-by, invited to come closer to a stall: the seller of women is a man who knows how to praise his wares. There follows a litany of the names given to woman, gentle names, names of honey and butter, names of caresses, and also names of things that are trampled underfoot. The text is given in French with its English translation in the 2009 anthology.
Context
The poem appeared in 1992 in the Guide de littérature mauritanienne, a methodical anthology by Nicolas Martin-Granel, Idoumou Ould Mohamed Lemine and Georges Voisset, published by L'Harmattan. Irène Assiba d'Almeida took it up in 2009 in A Rain of Words, from the University of Virginia Press, with a translation by Janis A. Mayes; it is the only text by its author there. The BnF and Open Library list no collection in her name.
Who it is for
A brief poem, in French, to be read in one or other anthology; there is no separate edition of it.
Prizes and reception
Reprinted in an anthology of African women poets, it has made the author known to English-language readers since 2009.