Table of Contents

Preface / 9 Introduction / 11 (ALGERIA) MOHAMMED DIB: Migrant / 21, The beast / 21, More than ever alive / 23, Thing / 23, River / 25 (ALGERIA) HABIB TENGOUR: Four times azure and five / 29, The water's edge / 29, The poem / 31 (CAMEROON) PAUL DAKEYO: Soweto, suns shot down (extracts) / 37, The song of silence (extracts) / 41 (CHAD) NIMROD: The cry of the bird / 55, Tibesti (extracts) / 55, Yet the Infanta of Salamanca - (extracts) / 57 (CONGO BRAZAVILLE) ALAIN MABANCKOU: When the cock announces the dawn of another day (extracts) / 67 (CONGO BRAZAVILLE) TCHICAYA U TAM'DI: Summary of a passion / 77 (extracts) (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO) KAMA SYWOR KAMANDA: In the silence of hearts / 85, The song of resistance / 85, The song of destiny / 87, Haunted houses / 89, The beating of the drums / 91 (DJIBOUTI) ABDOURAHMAN A. WABERI: Desires / 97, Truce / 97,Engravings / 97, Nomadic miniatures / 101, Untitled / 103, Tales of yesterday / 105 (IVORY COAST)TANELLA BONI: The gift still to come (four poems) / 111, Goree baobab island (four poems) / 113 (LEBANON) VENUS KHOURY-GHATA: The shades (extracts) / 121 (MAURITIUS) EDOUARD MAUNICK: I once was a tree / 131 (MAURITIUS) KHAL TORABULLY: Cantata for the child from Cana (extract) / 139, Les Indiades, Odes to Pessoa (extract) / 139, Dark light cast on Aapravisi Ghat (extract) / 141, Hold full of stars, Coolitude (extracts) / 143, Dialogue of water and salt (extracts) / 145, The red shadow of gazelles (extract) / 147 (MOROCCO) ABDELLATIF LAABI: Small clean slate (extracts) / 153, Shoulders and the burden (extracts) / 155 (SENEGAL) BABACAR SALL: Bed of sand (extracts) / 165 (SENEGAL)AMADOU LAMINE SALL: My country is not a dead country / 175 (TUNISIA) TAHAR BEKRI: Afghanistan / 183, Shade / 187, Dream at Trieste / 187, The Fisherman of Moons / 189 (TUNISIA) SHAMS NADIR: The other Sindbad (extracts) / 197, Echoes of Isla Negra / 203 (TUNISIA) AMINA SAID: "each day the sun... " / 207, "the mothers sleep..." / 209, "from our birth place..." / 213 About the translators / 217

About the Author

Patrick Williamson is an English poet who was born in Madrid in 1960 and lives near Paris. His most recent poetry collection is Three Rivers / Trois Rivieres (Editions Harmattan, Paris, 2010). He has translated, among others, selected poems of Tunisian poet Tahar Bekri and Quebecois poet Gilles Cyr, and edited Quarante et un poetes de la Grande-Bretagne (2003). In 1995 and 2003, he was an invited poet at the Festival International de Poesie at Trois-Rivieres in Quebec.