Poetry to Sing of Africa’s Hope

Paying tribute through poetry to the fighting spirit and hope of the African people, while bringing the wounds of their past back to the surface. This is what inspired novelist and playwright Kebir Mustapha Ammi to write his poetry collection Chants pour l’Afrique et les continents qui n’ont pas peur (Songs for Africa and the Continents That Are Not Afraid), recently published by Éditions Points. It is a lyrical journey inspired by his profound encounter with the continent, weaving the intimate fabric of a shared memory in which dreams coexist with wounds.
The nearly 148-page book, with a foreword by Tahar Ben Jelloun, takes the form of a long poem composed of numerous distinct songs. “This collection is one long poem. It is like a river standing tall, a river with a thunderous current, inhabited by rage and storms, but also by love and tenderness, reminding us one last time that the world we inherited and will leave to our descendants was not meant to be a place of violence and brutality,” says Kebir Mustapha Ammi.
These lyrical passages provide an opportunity to celebrate Africa, its diversity and its richness. “My book pays tribute to its differences, to its many ways of inhabiting the world… Because Africa is infinite, and therein lies its richness,” the writer explains. “It flows from a source upstream of what we strive to become, bringing its contribution of fraternity to the world,” he adds.
The collection is also intended as an indictment of the betrayals, humiliations and failures that have marked the continent’s history, as well as its tyrants and those who have sold it out. “I could not let the opportunity pass without challenging the tyrants; I could not let them sleep with a clear conscience,” the novelist stresses. “I wanted to put all of this right under the noses of those who believe, or once believed, that they owned Africa simply because brutality once enabled them to bring it to its knees,” he adds.

A Collection Inspired by His Encounter with the Continent That Shaped Him

The writer drew deeply on his personal experience of the African continent in creating this work. “After a long journey – intimate, geographical, memorial, psychological and historical – through colonial violence, the wounds of the past and the missed opportunities of the present… I wanted this song dedicated to Africa to encompass all of that, to bring together in its verses Billie Holiday, Fanon, Patrice Lumumba…” the poet concludes.
Karim AGOUMI