Heart stopping drama in Mali and Timbuktu

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer is getting lots of publicity. The title is provocative and evocative of swashbuckling and fearsome fighting librarians as adventurers, think Noah Wiley’s movie and TV series “The Librarians.” The book takes readers on an adventure through the deserts of Saharan Africa, up and down the Niger River, and into the famed city of Timbuktu, all in the name of saving manuscripts, the cultural heritage of the Malian and Arab peoples.

Readers will be sucked into the mission of Abdel Kader Haidara, archivist and chief protector of Mali’s manuscripts written between 1100 and the present. Haidara first collects then rescues over 350,000 items from under the noses of fundamentalist Muslims in the Maghreb.  The jihad to destroy civilization in the name of Islam and Sharia law is chilling. The race to move manuscript and printed books over 300 miles from Timbuktu in the north to Bamako in the south is heart stopping. As the ‘bad-ass librarians’ move their precious heritage over the desert and down the Niger River they must evade fundamentalist forces who seek to eradicate all that does not conform to their narrow religious world view.

In dynamic contrast to the written book, the audio performance is unemotional and matter-of-fact. Listeners might expect a highly dramatic reading full of lilting African voices and flawless Arabic pronunciation. Alas, the reader is an American who pronounces the Arabic and African words without hesitation in an acceptable accent. The high drama is lacking and aural adventurers will pause to consider whether the book is appropriately titled.

For armchair travelers and aural adventurers alike, this book should be on everyone’s reading list. The drama is in the telling and the, as yet, unfinished saga of Mali’s manuscripts.

If you want to read more about the manuscripts in Mali and Timbuktu, check out:

• Hammer, Joshua. “Barbarians at the Gates: The Race to Save Mali’s Priceless Artifacts.” Smithsonian (Jan 2014): 64-74. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/Race-Save-Mali-Artifacts-180947965/
• Manuscripts from the libraries at Timbuktu at the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/ 
• “Timbuktu’s ‘Badass Librarians’: Checking Out Books Under Al-Qaida’s Nose.” NPR (April 23, 2016): http://www.npr.org/2016/04/23/475420855/timbuktus-badass-librarians-checking-out-books-under-al-qaidas-nose
• Interview with author in ALA (March 2016) https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2016/03/24/newsmaker-joshua-hammer/
• “The Brave Sage of Timbuktu: Abdel Kader Haidara.” National Geographic (April 2014): http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/04/140421-haidara-timbuktu-manuscripts-mali-library-conservation/