The Bad-Ass Librarians would never have gotten off the ground without the wholehearted backing of my editors at Smithsonian Magazine. In the winter of 2006, I traveled to Timbuktu to write about efforts to recover and rehabilitate the manuscripts, and over the next eight years made two more trips to Mali on assignment for Smithsonian—a two-week journey in January 2008, to research a lengthy piece about artifact smuggling, and an August 2013 trip to chronicle Abdel Kader Haidara’s rescue effort. The trips whetted my fascination for this strange and beautiful country, and laid the groundwork for the book. I’m deeply indebted to Smithsonian’s Carey Winfrey, Michael Caruso, Terry Monmaney, and, above all, my assigning editor and close friend Kathleen Burke, for indulging my wanderlust for a decade and for encouraging this project. Molly Roberts, Jeff Campagna, Nona Yates, Bruce Hathaway, Jesse Rhodes, Brian Wolly, and the entire editorial staff of Smithsonian also deserve great thanks for their support.
Robert Silvers sent me to Mali for The New York Review of Books in January 2013, days after the French launched Operation Serval to drive out the militants, a critical trip that brought home the country’s trauma with great immediacy. Esther Kaplan of the Nation Institute provided funding for that January 2013 journey. Over the following year, the Review also sent me to Kidal and Timbuktu, continuing to provide me with a prestigious forum for my Mali reporting and helping me to develop my expertise about the country. I owe thanks as well to the Review’s Hugh Eakin, an encouraging voice throughout the project. I’m grateful, too, to Jon Sawyer and Tom Hundley of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, DC, which financed my travel through northern Mali in January and February 2014 and published much of my reporting and photography on their web site.
Over the past decade Stuart Emmrich and Suzanne McNeille of The New York Times commmissioned several travel pieces that gave me a grounding in Mali’s music and culture. Evan Ratcliffe and Katia Bachko at The Atavist Magazine allowed me to explore the relationship between Manny Ansar and Iyad Ag Ghali for my May 2015 piece, “The Desert Blues.” The reporting turned up new details that enriched the book’s narrative. Oliver Payne and Victoria Clark of National Geographic also provided a highly visible outlet and more funding for my research into the manuscript story.
I’m deeply indebted to my longtime friend Karen Crabbs, of Toguna Adventure Tours in Bamako, who has organized half a dozen trips for me through Mali since 2006, some of them at the height of the country’s instability. Karen introduced me to key sources, found me fixers and translators, provided astute observations about security conditions and politics, and showed me Bamako’s vibrant nightlife. It was over a dinner with her one evening in 2013 in Bamako that I first began contemplating a book on Mali, and she served as an important sounding board for the work-in-progress. Adam Thiam, Mali’s most celebrated journalist, shared his reporting on the jihadist takeover of northern Mali, as well as his contact list in Timbuktu and Gao. Manny Ansar, whom I first met through Karen Crabbs in Bamako in January 2013, became a critical source of information about Malian music, Tinariwen, Tuareg culture and history, and the life of his one-time close friend, Iyad Ag Ghali. During our many rendezvous in Oslo, Berlin, Bamako, and Ségou in 2013 and 2014, Manny was unfailingly generous with his time and unlocked many memories, some quite painful, that he had stored away for years. Azima Ag Ali Mohammed, my frequent guide in Timbuktu, opened up doors to secret corners of the city. Mohammed Touré, the until know unsung hero among the bad-ass librarians, shared his stories in gripping detail. The musicologist and Tinariwen expert Andy Morgan shared his intimate knowledge of the band and of recent Tuareg history.
I owe a tremendous thanks to Abdel Kader Haidara, whom I first met in Timbuktu in 2006 and had remained in intermittent touch with over the years before returning to Mali for this book project in January 2014. Haidara devoted twenty hours of his time in Bamako and in Brussels to telling me his life story, displaying infinite patience, opening up a world to me, sharing his insights into Islam, Timbuktu Society, Sorhai culture, and, of course, the genius of the Islamic manuscripts of Timbuktu’s Golden Age.
In Paris, my longtime friend and colleague Jon Randal, the legendary former foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, introduced me to his contacts in the French Ministry of Defense, who gave me access to key military officers involved in Operation Serval. They helped me recreate this obscure but important campaign against the jihadis in the northern desert. Thanks to Pierre Bayle, General Bernard Barrera, Captain Raphaël Oudot de Dainville, and Colonel Bruno Bert of the 2e régiment d’infanterie—régiment d’Auvergne, who hosted me at his camp in Clermont Ferrand and introduced me to his troops over a long lunch with multiple glasses of French wine and champagne. Vivienne Walt and Jeffrey Schaeffer accommodated me in style at their apartment in Sèvres-Babylone, and offered their friendship and enthusiasm for the work in progress. Thanks as well to the staff of the National Library at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, for facilitating my access to vital archival materials.
Stateside, former Ambassador to Mali Vicki Huddleston made herself available on repeated occasions, in person, by phone, and by email, to answer questions about the U.S. response to the growing jihadi threat in the Sahel. Former Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic, former General Chuck Wald, and former defense attaché William Mantiply also gave generously of their time. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates shared with me vivid detail about his often inspiring, sometimes exasperating encounters with Abdel Kader Haidara. Scott Johnson, Janet Reitman, Lee Smith, Kathleen Hughes, Bob and Frankie Drogin, Keith Richburg, Nicole Gaouette, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Clifton Weins, Michael Kimmelman, and, in London, Alex Perry, provided encouraging words and advice about the narrative, as did my father, Richard Hammer, my stepmother, Arlene Hammer, my mother, Nina Hammer, and my stepfather Mitchell Cotter. At Simon & Schuster, my editor Priscilla Painton, ably assisted by Megan Hogan, Sophia Jimenez, and Jonathan Evans, worked tirelessly on the project, whipping up my enthusiasm, helping me to find and shape the narrative, and coming up with the wonderful title. My agent Flip Brophy was, as always, a steady voice of support.
In Berlin, Paul Hockenos, Mark Simon, Sam Loewenberg, and Melissa Eddy offered their friendship and advice over many enjoyable meals and conversations. Annette Krämer devoted herself to caring for her grandson, Tom, for countless hours, easing the family burdens and making my travel and writing possible. My sons, Max, Nico, and Tom helped me retain my perspective and kept my spirits high. Above all I want to thank my partner, Cordula Krämer, for her unflagging commitment, support, and love throughout all the ups and downs of this project, for her amazing ability to hold down a challenging job and be an astonishingly good mother of a three-year-old. She is bad-ass, in the best sense of the word.