Haji Jabir

Haji Jabir was born in Massawa, Eritrea, in 1976 and fled to Saudi Arabia with his parents during the Eritrean War of Independence. He is an award-winning writer and one of the most important Eritrean intellectuals. Jabir writes in Arabic and has so far published five novels that deal with the past and present of his home country and the Eritrean diaspora: »Samrawit« (2012), »Fatma’s Harbour« (2013), »The Spindle Game« (2015), »Black Foam« (2018), and »The Abyssinian Rimbaud« (2021).

His books have been translated into Italian, Hebrew, Kurdish, and Farsi. In an interview with »Arablit«, Jabir said about his literary work: »I write about the people of my country, because they are a persecuted and suffering people, and so my novels come in this manner. I would like to write far from politics, but I would betray these people if I turned away from their issues«.

»Black Foam« is Jabir’s first novel, which is available in English and German translation. The idea for the book came to the author in 2015 when the Israeli military shot an Eritrean migrant on the assumption that he was a fugitive Palestinian who had committed a crime.

»Black Foam« tells the story of the Eritrean Dawoud, who wants to escape his past in politically turbulent times and sets off across national borders in search of a new home and human belonging – first in Eritrea, then in a refugee camp, in a Falasha community in Ethiopia and finally in Israel and Palestine. Along the way, Dawoud changes his name, his religion, and his cultural affiliation several times – always hoping for an end to his odyssey. The text is the result of in-depth research in various migrant communities and was nominated for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2019 as the first novel by an Eritrean author. »Dawit’s plight is heartbreaking (…) Yet Jabir takes pains to humanize rather than idealize him« (NPR). Haji Jabir works as a journalist for Al Jazeera and lives in Doha, Qatar.

Black Foam
Amazon Crossing
Seattle, 2023
[Ü: Sawad Hussain, Marcia Lynx Qualey]