Reference: Gimeno Martin, J.C. y al (2020) Poetas y poesía del Sáhara Occidental. Antropología de la poesía nacional saharaui. Spain: Ultima linea.
Summary:
“This book is an extraordinary work that makes known the Saharawi poets. Invisible, making them known is, in itself, a valuable contribution to the decolonization of Eurocentric literature. However, this book goes further, for three main reasons: Firstly, the Saharawi poets wrote in Hassania, a variant of the Arabic language spoken by the Saharawis, and were translated into Spanish by the Saharawi poets of the Friendship Generation who write poetry in Spanish. The translation in this case is a remarkable exercise in hospitality between languages, in intercultural translation. Secondly, the book is the result of a collaborative research project with the participation of a group of Saharawi social and cultural activists and Saharawi and Spanish social scientists. The presentations of the poets are brilliant texts, stories of lives and of poets that constitute an eloquent and convincing exercise in the ecology of knowledge. Thirdly, this book is an exercise in political responsibility by university researchers who conceive their work as an acquaintance with the Saharawi people and not as an acquaintance about the Saharawi people. It represents an extraordinary work of internationalist cooperation. In this sense, it becomes a knowledge born in the struggle and, therefore, a knowledge of the epistemologies of the South. For these reasons, this book is almost unique in its kind. I don’t think there is any better reason to strongly recommend its reading” – Boaventura de Sousa Santos