Poetry
The News to Rome
Annagoo Taleex naal
Ismaaciil Mire · 1913
Synopsis
The poem sets out from Taleex, the capital of the Dervishes, where the men deliberate on holy war, then recounts an expedition of 1913 against the British forces of Somaliland: the preparations, the ride, the attack, the return with the booty of camels and its sharing. The poet takes his place in it as a fighter, with his prayers and his curses against the enemy, and addresses his horse, Tuurre.
Context
The poem was composed shortly after the battle of Dul Madoba, fought on 9 August 1913, in which some hundred and ten men of the British Camel Constabulary faced more than two thousand Dervish horsemen. In this war, propaganda poems were a weapon of both camps. Said S. Samatar published the Somali text and an English translation in 1980, in Research in African Literatures, classing it among the mock-heroic songs; Axmed Faarax Cali Idaajaa devoted to the author a collection published in Mogadishu in 1974.
Who it is for
For reading a great Somali historical poem, available in English; no French version of it is known.
Prizes and reception
The Poetry Translation Centre counts its author among the most famous Somali poets of the early twentieth century.
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