Occupation Writer, journalist Role Writer Name Bahia Awah | Ethnicity Sahrawi Language Spanish Education University of Havana | |
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Alma mater University of Havana, Cuba Notable works Versos Refugiados (2007)
Literatura del Sahara Occidental (2008)
El Porvenir del Espanol en el Sahara Occidental (2009)
La Maestra que me enseno en una Tabla de Madera (2010)
El Sueno de Volver (2012) | ||
Bahia Mahmud Awah (born 1960) is a Sahrawi writer, poet and journalist. He is a founding member of the group of writers known as the "Sahrawi Friendship Generation".
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Personal life
Bahia was born in a nomadic family in 1960 near Auserd, on the Rio de Oro southern region of then Spanish Sahara. He was named Bahia in honour of his uncle, the Sahrawi poet Bahia Uld Awah. His mother gave him his first classes, acting as teacher until he joined the first schools made by the Spanish authorities, an experience later portrayed in his book "La maestra que me enseñó en una tabla de madera". Bahia passed those early years between the schoolyard and the desert, shepherding the flocks of his family. He obtained his bachelor's degree studying both in Western Sahara and Algeria, because of the start of the Western Sahara War.
In the late seventies he moved to Cuba for having university studies, like many Sahrawi youths at the time. Although he had always loved arts like poetry, he graduated in telecommunications by the University of Havana. On returning to the Sahrawi refugee camps, he directed the Spanish programation of the Sahrawi National Radio for four years.
In 1998 he moved to Spain, where he do linguistics and translation studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid and the University of Alcalá. In 2001 he started the blog "Poemario por un Sáhara Libre" as a space for social, political and cultural news about the Sahrawi people. Since 2010, he is Honorary professor of Social Anthropology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He had made conferences about the Sahrawi literature in universities of Spain and USA.
Career
Bahia started writing when he was 25, according to him "little reflexions and poems". In 2005, with other Sahrawi writers and poets, he formed the group known as the "Sahrawi Friendship Generation". In 2007, the Alcalá de Henares university published his first solo book of poems, entitled "Versos refugiados" ("Refugee verses"). In 2008, he published in which he stated as a "brief essay" named "Literatura del Sáhara Occidental" ("Western Sahara literature"), where he took a look at the Sahrawi oral and written literature since the 18th century until our days, both in Hassaniya and Spanish. In 2010 the editorial Sepha published his first novel, entitled "La maestra que me enseñó en una tabla de madera" ("The mistress who teach me on a wood table"), a book most based on his childhood memories about his mother, who teach him to read and write in his first life years. In 2012, the Arabic culture specialized editorial CantArabia published "El Sueño de Volver" ("The Dream of Returning"), in which Awah remembered his life and experiences in then Spanish Sahara.