Tuareg writer and painter, Hawad was born in the Air in the central Sahara. As a child, he received a nomadic education which introduced him to spatial mobility as well as social, cultural and linguistic. Polyglot, familiar with cultural diversity, intercontinental traveler, Hawad has chosen to write in his language, Tamajaght (variant of Amazigh) which he notes in Tifinagh, Tuareg alphabet.
In his abundant work, various literary genres intersect – poetry, epic gesture, philosophical tale – featuring worlds “infinitely on the move” that meet, transform, recompose themselves to continue their journey. The drama and resistance of the Tuareg people or any people threatened with extermination punctuate his fictional universe. His literary as well as pictorial work echoes his philosophy of space and “distraction”. How to be a nomad today? How to continue the march which multiplies horizons? To resist chaos and nonsense, to fight against the ultimate dispossession of oneself, that of the imaginary, Hawad invents “furigraphy”, a creative process intended to find exits outside an established restrictive and mutilating order. Along with his literary work, he develops a graphic expression inspired by the tifinagh signs that he paints on multiple media (skin, stone, paper, bone, wood). The letters he sets in motion are gradually transformed into abstract paintings bearing the same “furigraphic” impetus to get out of the standstill and engage in “nicknameism”, escaped from alienated time and space. As early as 2000, Hawad set about making his cultural center project in Agadez a reality, which he calls the “Portique Nomade”. Despite the intensifying political and military unrest in the Sahara, in 2006 and 2010 he organized the Furigraphic Meetings of Tuareg Art and Poetry. The Third Meetings have not been able to take place so far.
His numerous works of poetry, accompanied by original inks, have been translated into French – some are published in bilingual versions – and into various other languages. His poetic work was distinguished by the 2017 Argana International Poetry Prize (Rabat, Morocco). He exhibited his inks and canvases in cities on several continents in Europe, America and Africa.
