Published by Motifs / Le Serpent à Plumes, 1994, 177 pages. Published in English as The Land without Shadows, University of Virginia Press, 2005. Translated from French by Jeanne Garane.

A man forgets his own language and finds himself speaking Creole; a young woman runs away from her village to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man; and a young man tries to prove his manhood by capturing a virgin from her family’s home.

These stories take place in what Abdourahman A. Waberi calls le pays sans ombre, or “the land without shadows”. The land is Djibouti, a tiny country on the Horn of Africa, covering an area of 8,450 square miles. Strategically located at the entrance to the Red Sea and on the shipping route between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, it has been coveted by the Ottoman Empire, Ethiopia, Somalia, and France, which colonized the country from 1862 to 1977.

The French word ombre, which translates as both shade and shadow, could refer to the hot climate in Djibouti, the lack of shade because of the sparse vegetation, or the harsh terrain that makes survival difficult. In her introduction to the English edition, The Land without Shadows, the book’s translator Jeanne Garane explains why she felt “shadow” was more appropriate: “it renders better both the absence of shelter from the sun and the struggle to exist”.[1]

The stories, a mix of the mythical and the real, are set both during French colonization and post-independence. The book is divided into two sections: Pages Torn from the Novel of the Imagination, and Pages Torn from the Land without Shadows.

Waberi draws upon myths and legends in some of his stories. “The Primal Ogress” (L’Ogresse des origines) delves into the country’s origins. According to the story, the country’s name is actually Jabouti, which comes from Jab (meaning “defeat”) and Bouti (“the ogress”). The ogress—the forgotten mother, the “cannibal god-mother” who could create life and take it away—was Djibouti’s patron saint. After her death, “the trampoline of history has relentlessly shaken this indigent region”.

One of my favourite pieces is the story about the coming of the railway, “A Ferrous Tale” (Conte de fer), which tells of the growth of the railway, 784 kilometers long, climbing up to 2,350 meters, and crossing “deserts, plains, savannahs and high plateaus”, traversing both “the real land” (le pays réel) and “the land of dreams” (le pays rêvé). This is a beautifully written piece: the language, using repetition and rhythm, echoes the sound of the train: relentless, unstoppable.[2]

But it is the Djiboutians who are at the heart of these stories. In “A Woman and a Half” (Une femme et demie), Marwo, a young woman, escapes from her father who is about to marry her to a toothless old man. She finds refuge with her uncle, “the purveyor of meaning”, who “clears the way for the future of children to come”.[3]

“The Seascape Painter and the Wind Drinker” (Le Peintre de la mer et le Buveur de vent) tells of three friends. “One paints the sea as a vocation; the other drinks the wind out of dereliction; both are unemployed. Badar and Dabar have as their friend a sculptor of dreams who is just as ragged as they are.” They live in their own world, oblivious to the “uncivil war” in their country.

Khat—an addictive plant that is chewed as a stimulant—is a problem throughout the country. Waberi is scathing about its addicts. In the first story, “The Gallery of the Insane” (Galerie des fous), Waberi paints a picture of the effects on its users. This habit effectively shuts down the city of Djibouti from “one o’clock in the afternoon to eight o’clock in the evening”. “Without khat, no life!… Khat is the poison and its antidote.” In “The Troglodyte Root” (La Racine des troglodytes), Waberi calls its addicts troglodytes who do not see the light of day; in “The Ruminants of Routine” (Les Brouteurs du quotidien), he describes the khat chewers as ants without the taste for work.

In these stories, Waberi uses oral tradition, which he combines with stark realism. He uses references that reach beyond Djibouti, to writers such as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Charles Baudelaire and Dante Alighieri.

Together, these stories portray Djibouti as it has changed over the years. The book is a welcome addition to world literature—literature that gives readers an insight into various cultures and histories.

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[1] The translations into English (unless stated otherwise), including the names of the stories, are taken from the introduction and forward to the English version, which I found on Google Books: https://books.google.ch/books?id=WINuTCnGv0EC&printsec=copyright&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

[2] Translations here are mine.

[3] Translations here are mine.