Poetry
Xarnu bi
Not translated into English
Serigne Moussa Ka · 1929
Synopsis
A poem in Wolof, written in Arabic script, commissioned by Serigne Ndame Abdou Rahmane Lo and other Mouride dignitaries to implore the help of the brotherhood's founder, who had died two years earlier, in the face of the trials of the time: drought, thirst, hunger and economic crisis. Steeped in Wolof culture, figures of speech and images of nature, it also recalls Bamba's miracles and the training of Mouride guides.
Context
Composed in 1929, the poem circulated in manuscripts copied by disciples; a copy by Serigne Mbaye Nguirane, in red and black ink, was digitised by the British Library in a programme to safeguard Wolof manuscripts in Arabic script carried out with Boston University. The Senegalese press cites it among the author's great titles, along with Yeurmeundé and Nattoo di kerkéraane. It has been translated into neither French nor English.
Who it is for
To discover the great religious poetry of wolofal, born in the circle of the founder of Mouridism.
Prizes and reception
A reader presented it in 2009 as a classic of Wolof literature, an elegy of the crisis of the thirties.