Tales of the Hedgehog
and Other Stories of Saharan Women
A part of the Saharawi population has spent a long time in the refugee camps that they built in the desert after their exodus. The families separated and the stories disappeared from the nights in which what was gathered before the fire was the memory of those who were not there. The footprints that the stories traced were erased by the sand of the Sahara desert.
40 years have passed and women under that age no longer know traditional stories, those stories that spoke of how caring for others is the only force that allows us to survive in a hostile world, that family love is the greatest treasure that one can have, that tenacity and intelligence are more powerful than strength...
That is why we collected the almost forgotten stories from the mouths of the old Saharawi women so that the women and girls of today know where they come from and where they are going.
"This kind of books have an exceptional value: they place us in the social and collective imaginary of an entire culture and help us to understand what life and the meaning of their existence mean to them." - Animalec
This is an example of the sound archives of the stories that Ana Cristina Herreros collected from the women in the Saharawi camps of Dajla, Bojador and Smara which she visited in October 2016.
Written by Ana C. Herreros
Illustrated by Daniel Tornero
Collection: Black series
Size: 29x22 cm
Pages: 90
Binding: Cardboard
(31 stories and 41 illustrations)
ISBN: 978.84.945888.3.9
(Price without VAT €21.65)
RRP €22.50
Projects in the Sahara
Libros de las Malas Compañías considers the Saharawi people to be one more author of this book, so the percentage of the corresponding royalty for the author's rights will go to the cultural project they decide on.
Right now, we are deciding between two projects that have been proposed to us, which are the most necessary to carry out, and we have taken books to the Bubisher libraries.
Our trip to the Sahara
In the summer of 2016, Ana Cristina Herreros and Daniel Tornero travelled to the Tindouf refugee camp where the Saharawi people wait for their land to be returned to them. While Ana collected the women's stories, Daniel held illustration workshops with the kids in the Boubisher libraries.
PRESS
Review from The Hedgehog Tales at Bubisher
Canal Lector informs us about our book
It is not just a collection of stories,
it is about preserving cultural heritage for the future
which can be lost forever, especially that of a town
as the Saharan.
Web Literafricas
Article in this interesting website where the contents are discussed,
the stories, which we collect in the book, and, of course, their relationship
with the Saharawi women.
Article in the "Future Planet" section of El País
Extensive article at the hands of Sukeina Aali-Taleb, where in addition to deepening the contents of the volume and the stories behind it,
Much-appreciated photographic and illustrative support is included.
Informative note in the digital media News for Municipalities (07/28/2019)
Note on the exhibition that took place in the Exhibition Hall of the Central Library of Móstoles about our book and its illustrations.
Review on the Animalec blog
From this great blog, they don't forget our story. Don't
miss it!
Ana C. Herreros
She was born in León and her grandmother kept quiet stories. So she soon learned to listen to the silence and to love those who have no voice, those who don't tell tales.
So much so that, years later and already an emigrant in Madrid, she began to write a doctoral thesis on the literature of those who neither write nor read. And so, researching the oral tradition, in 1992 she came across oral narration. She started telling stories, and for more than twenty years, she has not been silent. Then her voice filled with ink and she started writing. Her work has been translated to Catalan, French and Mexican. She has made an autistic man speak, a princess sit down to listen to her lecture and 16 6-month-old babies preferred listening to her stories to taking a bottle. Oh, if her grandmother raised her head...
With Libros de las Malas Compañías she has also published the following titles:
Daniel Tornero
He is an illustrator, narrator and teacher, but above all, he is a narrator. He has been with the Jamacuco stage group since the last century, and he likes telling stories so much that he has gone from voice to paper. Now he also paints the parallel universe of the stories using coloured pencils and a brush made of the hair of a child. Whether as a narrator or as a cartoonist, the important thing is that it continues telling.
As an illustrator, he has been working since January 2012 at the Ipad Magazine DON, and since May 2014 he has been the art director, designer and illustrator of the publishing house Libros de las Malas Compañías. He has already published a book, The Skeleton Woman, which has been a finalist for the Extraordinary Prizes for Plastic Arts and Design of the Autonomous Community of Madrid. It has also received the Honorable Mention at the XII Audiovisual Awards of the Directorate General for Equality.
With Libros de las Malas Compañías he has also illustrated the following titles:
