Tag: African Literature

Read: Yes
Notable: New York Times Bestseller
Quick Review: A look into the collecting, conserving, hiding, and rescuing the most important manuscripts documenting African history, literature, culture, life, philosophy, science, religion and more.

Abdel Kader Haidara is not a name most of us are familiar with. Joshua Hammer reveals the heroic efforts of Haidara and his team to save not just once but twice the illuminating manuscripts documenting a little known history of Africa in his third book The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu.

Africa has a reputation for not having a history because it lacks written documentation of their vast and varied history. Haidara began a journey in the 1980’s to contradict the stereotype of a dark continent. Timbuktu was the center of scholarship in Africa for centuries. Out of fear from jihadis and colonizers in the past five hundred years, those who possessed valuable manuscripts began hiding them in order to protect. Haidara spent years accumulating these precious manuscripts that had been buried, hidden, and even forgotten. In the early 2000’s, Haidara gained recognition for his conservation efforts and building a large library to house his family’s manuscripts. In the 2010’s, Al Qaeda began moving into the region and took over Timbuktu. In order to protect the manuscripts, Haidara moved them into private homes before smuggling them out of the city. 

The book is split into several chapters alternating between Haidara’s story and the terrorist activity in the region. The sections describing the terrorist activity are very dry full of facts. The area has been a hotbed of religious extremism for centuries, so the information is incredibly important. A lot of the names and events are familiar because they were mentioned in the news at the time but never went into in any detail.

Hammer does a great job in relaying the emotions the citizens of Timbuktu went through during the Al Qaeda invasion. He relays a great deal of information in a concise package. There is a lot of cultural, religious, and regional information, which he describes to those who may not have a knowledge of Northern Africa. It is well written but a tad dull. 

Fun Fact: Bouctou means: the woman with the big belly button. Tin means: well. The Tuareg tribe was a nomadic tribe. In the twelfth century, they found an area with good water. When they described the area to others in their tribe they said it was the Tin of Bouctou or the well of the woman with the big belly button. Over Tin Bouctou evolved into Timbuktu.

Fun Fact: Hammer refers to the kidnapping of 276 girls. Alexis goes deeper into the subject in her debut work A Moonless, Starless Sky. A great book also dealing with extremism in Africa.

Memorable Quotes:
“The confrontation between these two Islamic ideologies-one open and tolerant, the other inflexible and violent-would bedevil Timbuktu over the following five centuries.”
“He was particularly interested in manuscripts that contradicted Western stereotypes of Islam as a religion of intolerance – pointing with pride to Ahmed Baba’s denunciation of slavery…”

Title: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
Author: Joshua Hammer
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9781476777412