The oral tradition
It is whispered that an ogress was roaming the region. With the body of an old woman and the head of a hyena, Bouti devoured a lone child here and spread terror and confusion there. When she killed an entire family, the wise men gathered and summoned the warriors to put an end to her actions. From the revenge obtained a myth was born, that of the defeat of Bouti (Djab-Bouti) which the French understood - phonetically - as Djibouti. Legends coexisted with anecdotes among the nomadic peoples who constantly roamed the Horn of Africa, but the rich oral tradition also implied rules and metrics that make it impossible not to bring it closer to the art of poetry. Like the Afar verses where the rhythm, although intuitive, advocates harmony, or the Somali poems, epic and political (gabay), which are constructed in responses between two speakers and whose length defies the best memories. Finally, we must not forget the songs that punctuate the day's walk or are dedicated to the herd according to a precise ritual, and those that punctuate the daily activities, from churning to putting the young to sleep. This intangible wealth - is a clan member not judged by the number of worms bequeathed to him by his parent? - was belatedly recognized, but with the advent of writing, which threatened orality, researchers are now keen to preserve it. Perhaps one of the most prominent of these is Ali Moussa Iye, who coordinated UNESCO's Culture of Peace programme and wrote about Xeer Issa (customary law) in the best-selling book The Verdict of the Tree. He also prefaced the miraculously saved account of a little shepherd boy, born around 1917, who left the desert to reach the coast. Houssein Meraneh Mahamoud's magnificent testimony, published in 2005 by Menaibuc, can also be found on the Internet under the title Dardaaran: testament of a nomad returning from the seas
. At the beginning of the 20th century, in this territory occupied by the French since 1884, the written word was only the prerogative of colonists or travellers, and this was all the more true in the 1930s when several authors evoked the small country and followed in the footsteps of Arthur Rimbaud at the end of the 19th century. Let's mention in particular the journalist Joseph Kessel and his colleague Albert Londres who published in 1931 a report entitled Pêcheurs de perles, Henry de Monfreid who began to forge a reputation as an adventurer from his first autobiographical account, Les Secrets de la mer rouge, published the same year, or the young Paul Nizan and his Aden Arabie whose incipit has remained famous (" I was twenty years old. I will not let anyone say that it is the most beautiful age of life. »). At the same time, at the local level, a few timid attempts were made: small theatrical productions sprang up and a tiny primary school was created in 1921. French became the language of instruction, on the model of what was done in Ethiopia, which was not a colony... But conflicts, whether regional - the Italians occupied Ethiopia in 1936 and prohibited the use of French - or international - the Second World War resulted in a blockade - put a stop to these literary processes, both external and internal. It was not until 1949 that a sixth grade class was opened, and it was not until ten years later that what is considered the first Djiboutian work was published by Présence Africaine: Khamsine by William J.-F. Syad. Prefaced by Léopold Sédar Senghor, this collection of poems evokes the fate of a people in search of its identity. Another decade passed and finally the press, created by and for the colonists, opened up to local talent. Thus, Abdoulahi Doualé Wais portrayed in 17 episodes the falsely humorous adventures of Gel-cun, which can be read as a sharp criticism of the fate of nomadic peoples, and another schoolteacher, Houssein Abdi, in 1972, devoted thirty pages to a description of the country seen through the eyes of a child. Jean-Dominique Pénel, a doctor of literature specializing in the region, published a new edition of his reference work in 2020 with L'Harmattan, which dissects this pivotal period: Djibouti 70, repères sur l'émergence de la littérature djiboutienne en français dans les années soixante.Independence
Following three referendums in 1958, 1967 and 1977, Djibouti finally gained independence and literature was gradually freed from its chains, although the country was still plagued by political crises. The most famous of these emissaries is Abdourahman A. Waberi, born in 1965, who, after studying in France, now divides his time between the United States and Djibouti, where he teaches. His first book, Le Pays sans ombre, was published in 1994 by Serpent à plumes. In this patchwork of seventeen short stories, the author evokes both the past of his native country and the torments of his present. This uncompromising portrait was continued in 1996 with Cahier nomade, then in 1998 with Balbala. Although Waberi then turned his attention to other horizons, notably Rwanda, he never lost sight of the question of his country's place in the world, multiplying references to the original myth and the inhospitable environment. A perpetual exploration that will be published by several publishers, from Gallimard in 2003 (Transit), to Zulma (La Divine chanson, 2015), via Lattès (Passage des larmes, 2009) or Vents d'ailleurs with whom he will allow himself a foray into poetry with Mon nom est aube in 2016. He has also written, with his friend Alain Mabanckou, a playful dictionary of African cultures
for Fayard in 2019. Although his fellow countrymen are, for the time being, less known in our latitudes, Djibouti literature has nevertheless enjoyed a real dynamism since the 1990s, notably thanks to the associations that have been set up to promote young authors or to encourage theatre groups to develop. Some writers have been well received and are published by L'Harmattan, such as the short story writer Idriss Youssouf(La Galaxie de l'absurde, 2000), Chehem Wattam who depicted the confrontation between nomadic peoples and modernity in Pèlerin d'errance in 1997, the poet Isman Omar Houssein, born in 1980, and Ilyas Ahmed Ali, who imagined extraordinary stories in Le Miroir déformant. Women are not to be outdone and are following the path opened by the playwright turned minister Aïcha Mohamed Robleh and by Mouna-Hodan Ahmed who published Les Enfants du khat in 2002.
