Transit

August 27, 2012
Steeped in both historical lore and the socio-political realities of the small ex-French colony of Djibouti before and during its 1990s civil war, Waberiâs new collection tells the alternatively inspiring and somewhat laborious tale of Bashir âBinladen,â in Paris due to mistaken identity, who provides a crassly sensationalistic window into the soldierâs life, replete with graphic rape-and-pillage exploits described in an energetic, illiterate voice: âOh, the army was big mess. Holy Moly! We killed the Wadags, screwed their daughters, poisoned wells....â Standing in stark contrast to Bashir is Abdo-Julien, a child prone to lofty, over-lyrical observations: nomads are âChroniclers of the ephemeral,â who âshell their sayings like oysters.â Two other characters, both engrossing, arrive late in the binary alternations between Bashirâs warrior-thug sensationalism and Abdo-Julienâs sentimentality: Alice, the Breton student who fled France with Abdo-Julienâs father, is a sexualized and pragmatic mom who knows leaving Brittany will have tragic consequences; and Awaleh, Abdo-Julienâs nomadic warrior grandfather, is the very incarnation of the enchanted and fierce region known as the Horn of Africaâboth adventurer and modest seer, he gives Waberiâs narrative depth and a touch of magical realism.