Axel Azergui (Morocco / France) is a Berber writer, poet and a career journalist who lives in northern France where he continues to cover issues of migration, indigenous peoples, and arts. Azergui is from a south-eastern Moroccan Amazigh desert town, Tinejdad, where he completed his early education. He received a degree in law from the University of Meknes. Besides numerous poetry project and short stories, Azergui published four novels in Tamazight: Aghrum n yihaqqaren (Bread of Crows) Rabat, 2006 which he received the Qadi Kaddour Award for creative writing from David Hart Foundation based in Spain, Ighed n Tlelli (The ashes of freedom), Paris 2012, Imeggura g Imazighen (The last of the freemen), Lille, 2014, and Imecca n tirrgin (The ember eaters), Lille, 2017. Azergui, translated two of his own novels Tamazight into French Bread of crows and The ashes of freedom in 2013. He founded IDLES, a literary magazine that specializes in prose in Tamazight.
English
Berber
A storm dominates the land,
Under the red dust hides a root
Alive, beating like a heart
That shakes the earth.
2
Gold, phosphate, silver,
Multinationals like hyenas
They devoured the belly of our land
And left but disease, misery and dust.
3
Dagger of darkness
I am not your brother
My path is : Freedom
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Features on your faces are fading away,
They get covered by other faces we don’t know
Like a well, memories are filled in blood
When winds of terrorism blow.
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Dark winter,
Eyes closed,
The heart shaking,
The tree of courage is born
In the heart of lead.
Agelladus inbeḍ akal,
Ddaw ugeḍrur azeggwaγ iffer yan uẓur idusen,
Idder, ar ikkat amm wul,
Da akw issergigi akal
2
Urɣ, afusfaṭ, aẓṛef, uranyum, aɣir …
Tiṛmisin amm ifisen
Nebrent adis n wakal-nneɣ
3
Ajenwi n tillas,
Nek ur giɣ igma-k
Abrid-inu : Tilelli.
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Tifiras n wudmawen-nnun ar ttacckant
Seglen-ttent wudmawen yaḍen ur nessin
Amm tanut, ar ttekkur tmektit s idammen
iddeɣ d-isfaffi uzwu n tremɣa
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Tagrest taberkant,
Allen xsint,
Targagit g wul,
Aseklu n tebγest ilula-d,
Ammas n uldun.
.
Translated by : Buba Azegzaw (Boston)