Abdourahman Waberi

Abdourahman A. Waberi is novelist, essayist, poet, academic and short-story writer.

Abdourahman Waberi was born in Djibouti City in 1965. He went to France in 1985 to study English literature. Waberi worked as a literary consultant for Editions Le Serpent à plumes, Paris, and as a literary critic for Le Monde Diplomatique. He has been a member of the International Jury for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage (Berlin, Germany), 2003 & 2004.

Waberi worked as an English teacher at Caen, France, where he has lived for most of time since 1985. He was awarded with several honors including the Stefan-Georg-Preis 2006, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire in 1996 and the Prix biennal « Mandat pour la liberté » - offered by PEN France, 1998. In 2005, he was chosen amongst the “50 Writers of Future” by French literary Magazine Lire.

In 2006/2007, Waberi lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD. In 2007, he was a Donald and Susan Newhouse Center Humanities Fellow at Wellesley College, USA. His work is translated into more than ten languages. In 2007, Waberi participated in the international Stock Exchange of Visions project. In 2010, he was a William F. Podlich Distinguished Fellow and a visiting professor at Claremont McKenna College, California, a jury member of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and an Academie de France Villa Medici fellow in Roma, Italy.

Translated works

• The Land Without Shadows (short-story collection), translated by Jeanne Garane, prefaced by Nuruddin Farah, University of Virginia Press, 2005
• In The United States of Africa (novel), translation by David and Nicole Ball, prefaced by Percival Everett, University of Nebraska Press, March 2009.
• Passage of Tears (novel), translation by David and Nicole Ball, Seagull Books, 2011.

Bibliography

• Le Pays Sans Ombre ("The Land Without Shadow"), Serpent à plumes, Paris, 1994, ISBN 2-908957-31-0
• Balbala, Serpent à plumes, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-07-042121-X
• Cahier nomade ("Nomad's Book"), Serpent à plumes, Paris, 1999 ISBN 2-84261-127-6
• L'oeil nomade ("Nomad's Eye"), CCFAR, Djibouti, 1997, ISBN 2-7384-5222-1
• Les Nomades, mes frères vont boire à, la Grande Ourse ("The Nomads: My brothers go drinking in the Big Dipper") Hachette Education, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-7085-0231-X
• Rift, routes, rails ("Rifts, Roads and Rails"), Gallimard, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-07-076023-5
• Transit, Gallimard, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-07-076874-0
• Moisson de crânes ("Harvest of Skulls"), Serpent à plumes, Paris 2004 ISBN 2-7538-0020-0
• Aux Etats Unis d'Afrique ("In the United States of Africa"), Lattès, Paris 2006
• Passage des larmes ("Trail of Tears"), Lattès, Paris, 2009.

External links

• Official site (mostly in French)
• Brief biography (in English)
• Stock Exchange Of Visions: Visions of Waberi Abdourahman (Video Interviews)

• Abdourahman A. Waberi at the Internet Movie Database