Biography
Chehem Watta was born in Djibouti in 1962. He is the author of several French-language collections of poetry, including Pèlerin d'errance (Wandering Pilgrim), Sur les soleils de Houroud (On the Suns of Houroud), and Rimbaud l'Africain (Rimbaud the African). He studied ethnopsychiatry in France, earning a doctorate, before returning to Djibouti, where he became a senior civil servant and teacher. He has since held several high-profile positions, such as being the HIV/AIDS advisor to the president of the Djibouti Republic and the secretary general of the School of Medicine. His poetry celebrates the land and the landscapes, nomadic life, the desert and its rigors, and the drama of his people who were torn apart by the brutal arrival of the modern world.
