Friday evening, April 30th, I was invited by Observatoire to talk (in Dutch) about my book Lege Handen • Ifassen Ixwan • Empty Hands, a collaboration with Canadian visual artist Shelley Savor and Moroccan – Dutch engineer, writer, poet and translator Baghdad El Mesbahe. It was broadcasted live, from the beautiful 17th century Haarlem public library, through Observatoire’s website and facebook page. For those who missed it, Baghdad has made the whole conversation available through his youtube channel.

Teacher, advisor and journalist Mohamed (aka Momo) Bouzia interviewed me. Baghdad was there too, to read parts of the translation he made for our book as well as a translation of a poem Chaib Massaoudi wrote for an other collaborative book of mine, called TWIZA. Both Momo and Baghdad are the founders of Observatoire.

It was a relaxed, interesting, serious and fun talk, we talked about the book, about my poetry and my art, about the importance of exchange and collaboration, about Riffian poets such as Naima Farisi and Mimoun Essahraoui, about the pandemic, about the Tarifit language, about Amazigh culture, the parties and the events. Oh how this made me long for the real, warm, gatherings! Whether in an old school building, in someone’s kitchen, in a park or in a theater, but most importantly with actual people, food, dance, music, poetry. We all can’t wait for this pandemic to be over.

Ewa, min gha tegged! *)

*) But hey, what can you do about it!