Touhfat Mouhtare is a Comorian writer, and the second published women writer from Comoros.
Touhfat Mouhtare is a Comorian writer, and the second published women writer from Comoros.
Mouhtare was born 1986 in Moroni, Comoros. [1] She has lived in various countries in Africa, and studied in France, [2] [3] where she received a master's degree in communications from the University of Paris. [4]
She is the second published Comorian woman prose writer, after Coralie Frei, [5] and has also published poetry. [6] Ames suspendues, a collection of novellas, was published in 2011. [1] Her first novel, Vert cru, was published in 2018. [1] Her writings evolve around mythology, transgenerational memory, psychology, spirituality, and humanism. [7]
The Comoros, officially the Union of the Comoros, is an archipelagic country made up of three islands in Southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city is Moroni. The religion of the majority of the population, and the official state religion, is Sunni Islam. Comoros proclaimed its independence from France on 6 July 1975. A member of the Arab League, it is the only country in the Arab world which is entirely in the Southern Hemisphere. It is a member state of the African Union, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, and the Indian Ocean Commission. The country has three official languages: Shikomori, French and Arabic.
The Comorians inhabiting Grande Comore, Anjouan, and Mohéli share African-Arab origins. Islam is the dominant religion, and Quranic schools for children reinforce its influence. Although Islamic culture is firmly established throughout, a small minority are Christian.
Mayotte, officially the Department of Mayotte, is an overseas department and region and single territorial collectivity of France. It is located in the northern part of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Southeastern Africa, between Northwestern Madagascar and Northeastern Mozambique. Mayotte consists of a main island, Grande-Terre, a smaller island, Petite-Terre, as well as several islets around these two. Mayotte is the most prosperous territory in the Mozambique Channel, making it a major destination for immigration.
Azali Assoumani is a Comorian politician and military officer who has served as President of the Comoros from 2002 to 2006 and again since 2016, except for a brief period in 2019. He became head of state after staging a coup d'état in 1999 and was elected president in 2002, 2016, 2019 and 2024. He also served as Chairperson of the African Union February 2023 to February 2024.
Comorian is the name given to a group of four Bantu languages spoken in the Comoro Islands, an archipelago in the southwestern Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. It is named as one of the official languages of the Union of the Comoros in the Comorian constitution. Shimaore, one of the languages, is spoken on the disputed island of Mayotte, a French department claimed by Comoros.
Ahmed Abdallah Abderemane was a top Comorian politician. He was a member of the French Senate from 1959 to 1973, and President of the Comoros from 25 October 1978 until his assassination in 1989.
The franc is the official currency of Comoros. It is nominally subdivided into 100 centimes, although no centime denominations have ever been issued.
Virginie Despentes is a French writer, novelist, and filmmaker. She is known for her work exploring gender, sexuality, and people who live in poverty or other marginalised conditions.
Nathacha Devi Pathareddy Appanah is a Mauritian-French author. She spent most of her teenage years in Mauritius and also worked as a journalist/columnist at Le Mauricien and Week-End Scope before emigrating to France. She was a contributor to poetry and news section during her tenure in the magazines.
Bahia Bakari is a French woman who was the sole survivor of Yemenia Flight 626, an Airbus A310, which crashed into the Indian Ocean near the north coast of Grande Comore, Comoros on 30 June 2009, killing the other 152 people on board. 12-year-old Bakari, who had little swimming experience and had no life vest, clung to a piece of aircraft wreckage, floating in heavy seas for over nine hours, much of it in pitch darkness, before being rescued. Her mother, who had been traveling with her from Paris, France, for a summer vacation in Comoros, died in the crash.
Michèle Audin is a French mathematician, writer, and a former professor. She has worked as a professor at the University of Geneva, the University of Paris-Saclay and most recently at the University of Strasbourg, where she performed research notably in the area of symplectic geometry.
The official languages of the Comoros are Comorian, French and Arabic, as recognized under its 2001 constitution. Although each language holds equal recognition under the constitution, language use varies across Comorian society. Unofficial minority languages such as Malagasy and Swahili are also present on the island with limited usage. According to Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer, a professor of anthropology at Kansas State university, the linguistic diversity of the Comoros is the result of its rich history as part of the Indian maritime trade routes and its periods of Malagasy and French colonial rule.
Shumona Sinha, also spelled Sumana Sinha;, is a naturalised French writer born in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, who lives in France.
Comorians in France consist of migrants from Comoros and their descendants living and working in France.
Coralie Frei is a Comorian nurse and writer currently living in Switzerland. She is the first Comorian woman to write a novel, and has also written poetry.
Esther Benbassa is a French-Turkish-Israeli historian and politician. She specializes in the history of Jews and other minorities. Since 2011, Benbassa has served as a French senator, representing Paris from 2017 onwards and Val-de-Marne from 2011 to 2017.
Hadjira Oumouri is a Comorian politician and midwife. She served from 2015 to 2020 in the Assembly of the Union of the Comoros, becoming the second woman elected to the body in the country's history.
Comorian nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of the Comoros, as amended; the Comorian Nationality Code, and its revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of the Comoros. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Comorian nationality is typically obtained under the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in the Comoros, or jus sanguinis, born abroad to parents with Comorian nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization. The country no longer allows for nationality to be acquired through investment.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the Comoros. Currently, however, the country has a de facto moratorium in place; although the death penalty remains in the nation's penal code, it has not been used since the 1990s.
Zakia Madi was a Mahoran activist and a member of the Chatouilleuses and who was killed by the Comorian army during a protest in 1969. Both the market and a school in Mayotte have been renamed in her honour.
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