Salik Zaid-Nouakchott


When he was 12 years old and signed Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" in French, he did not find a problem with his reading. His father was one of the men who taught French in the 1950s.

The boy fell in love with the French language. He comes from an educated family and lives in the northern city of Attar, which is known for its ethnic diversity. Since then, he has started his journey in the Molière language.

The ease of acquiring books in French played a major role in the deepening of Amparak Ould Berrouk in French, driven by a passion that began from an early age, and combined to make him one of the most prominent Mauritanian writers in French.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, the internationally acclaimed Mauritanian novelist, Embarak Ould Berouk, talks about his beginnings with writing and the press, and his vision of the French and Arab speakers in Mauritania.

The beginning of the journey
After graduating from Morocco, he returned to Mauritania. In 1986, he began working in the public press and published short stories in Al-Shaab newspaper.

Embarak Ould Bierouk won the Ahmado Koroma Prize for the novel "Drum of Tears"

But the public media did not live writer, did not like the restrictions imposed on the editorial line, founded in 1988 an independent newspaper called "Mauritania tomorrow" says:
"The newspaper was aimed at the educated, French-speaking class, and I found a strong spread among them, and I founded it because I was looking for freedom of expression."

As a prominent touch in the media was put through the French newspaper Mauritania Tomorrow, the man in Moliere's own language found himself writing novels, and published his first novel in 2005 entitled "The Cloud Never Gets Rain."

The novel talks about the contradictions that occur in society and describes how a girl from a class in the hierarchy of society can rise up against a tribal elder. He refuses to marry him, and the novel engulfs the life of society between forcing the masters and the aspiration of the weak to freedom.

Ampark's novels have found an international resonance. In 2016, he received the Croma Prize for his novel "Drum of Tears", one of the biggest awards given to the Francophone novel, but he has a special look at the awards.

"I consider that awards are not the ones that give value to fiction or literary work in particular, because there are great writers who are creative and do not get prizes, and there are those who get it without being worth it," he says.

About the novels of Pirok
Poet Mohamed Ould Edoumy sees the novels of Amparek Bérouk as poetic, showing the poetic language in his writings. He says in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net that "they converge with the Mauritanian Arabic novels on many points. They deal with the themes of traditions and those concerning women, freedom, I do not make a mistake if I say that the boy Bierouk is one of the most prominent narrative books in the country. "

The novel "I am single" is the last narrative work of the Mauritanian writer Amparak Ould Berouk

The poet Ould Edoumy believes that the writing of Amparak in French deprives a large part of the society of his work, and says that he asked the author to translate his work, because it is necessary to have a translation movement, so that the literature written in French to Arabic speakers.

According to the researcher Ahmed Meloud Ould Iyadah, the stories of Ambarak Ould Berouk derive their strength from the Hassani culture. This is his novel "The Prince's Poet," which speaks of the role of the traditional poet in society, which plays many roles, including the role of the historian. He believes that he is the son of the desert and bears the task of defining the lives of people in this corner of the earth and considers that its roots extend from southern Morocco to Tabuktu.

I write to live
Writing for him is like sports and drinking tea, he describes this situation for Al-Jazeera Net saying, "I write always, often write to myself, then tear the paper, and sometimes I write and do not send my writings for publication, so I keep them for myself. "

Although he writes in French, he closely monitors the cultural scene, which is dominated by works in Arabic, because of the nature of society, known as the country of one million poets.

He believes that those who write in Arabic evoke the Orient much more in their writings than the Francophonie, so he finds them more distant from the reality of Mauritanians, summarizing his opinion by saying:
"There are a few books written in French, and their audience is elite here and abroad, but Arab literature and many of his friends, but the majority cling to the old hair, but there are some young people renew the hair, and deserve a new look."

The book is read by Mauritanian writers who write in French, such as Moussa Ould Ibnu, Edomou Ould Mohamed El Amine, Moussa Jacana, and Mariam Darwish.

In September, the author published the novel "I am alone". It revolves around a man who decided to live in his house without leaving it because of the control of the city by terrorist groups. He used to expiate, kill and intimidate, and the man commits his home and begins to remember his bad past. A corrupt man.