Hawad is Amajagh (Tuareg for ＂outsiders＂). He is a poet and painter of the Saharan Desert. Hawad writes in his own language, Tamajaght, which he transcribes in Tifinagh, the Tuareg alphabet. The drama and resistance of the Tuareg people, of all people threatened with extinction, punctuates Hawad’s fictional universe. Christopher Wise is a professor of English at Western Washington University. For nearly three decades he has translated the work of Sahelian authors. Hélène Claudot-Hawad is a French anthropologist and director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research. She is the author of numerous publications on the Tuareg world.