The Desert Shore: Literatures of the Sahel (review)

The Desert Shore: Literatures of the Sahel, ed. Christopher Wise. Boulder: Rienner 2001. 271 pp. ISBN 0-89410-867-0 cloth.

Transcending all national borders, Desert Shore introduces the little-known literatures of the Sahel, a region brought together by a common history, culture, and climate. Emphasizing a "neo-humanist bias" (251), the book insists on the syncretic nature of Sahelian culture and focuses on bridging the shores of the African and American continent.

Following Christopher Wise's introduction to section one, Al-Hajj Sékou Tall makes the claim in chapter 2 that Islam is a constitutive element of "sahelity" and rejects the earlier inquiries on the origins of the Fulani people as "a lesson in intolerance" (24). Chapters 3 and 4 introduce Titinga Frédéric Pacéré's theory of bendrology where the drum is deemed "prior to the spoken phrase" and "independent of human creation" (36). In chapter 5, the Western-trained Burkinabè critic Albert Ouédraogo critiques Pacéré's argument for lack of scientific objectivity and for his Afrocentric claim that drum language is "independent from language and words" (83). Finally, Sean Kilpatrick shows how "The Epic of Askia Mohammed" creates a harmonious synthesis between pre-Islamic and Islamic belief systems.

Race and politics are the focus of the second section. Chapters 7 and 8 introduce the Touareg poet Hawad who rejects all nationalistic, cultural, and religious affiliations. In the next chapter, Lisa McNee's study of the poetry of some Mauritanian women in exile suggests that hybridity in Mauritania, rather than reflecting "a democratic process," serves to hide the social inequities between "bidan" (whites) and "sudan" (blacks). The final three chapters focus on the African writer's political commitment. The assassination of the writer Norbert Zongo by the Burkinabè regime illustrates the price the African writer pays for the "toilettage" of her/his society.

The third section reevaluates the European travelogue in the Sahel. Wise's study of European travel writing in chapter 13 suggests that the cultural clash between the European and Sahelian peoples stems from different attitudes about literature, writing, and books. Chapter 14 examines the issue of slavery in the Sahel from an Islamic rather than a Western perspective. Paul Lovejoy suggests that it is the enslaving of free Muslims that fueled the Sokoto Jihad of Usman Dan Fodio. Finally, Tall's travelogue "Wanderings: Bamako, Moscow, Delhi" satirizes the Western traveler's position as a see-it-all-Master.

One of the major strengths in this study is Wise's questioning of his position as a Western critic who might be contributing to the "U.S. global hegemony" (252). Women's ' writing from the Sahel, however, remains marginalized by both the Sahelian and the Western male critics. Georg M. Gugelberger's claim that he is the first to write on Hawad in the English-speaking world is not quite accurate, as there is a previous study on Hawad by Debra Boyd-Buggs (- -"The Fusion of Sufi and Nomad Thought in the Poetry of Hawad, Tuareg Mystic"). Even though Wise enumerates in the introduction nine Sahelian countries, only the literatures of Burkina Faso and Mali are studied. Finally, one can only wonder about the implications of Wise's praise of orality and denigration of books (177) on a continent where one of the major obstacles hampering its economic and scientific development is illiteracy.