Oum Nasser MAMINE SIDATY
Oum Al-Nasser Mamine Sidaty, known by her literary pseudonym Al-Samra, is a Mauritanian writer, poet, and researcher holding a BA in Sociology. Her work engages deeply with questions of freedom and marginality, with a particular focus on women’s experiences in nomadic environments and the social and cultural complexities they embody.
In her poetry, as critics have observed, she transforms ordinary moments into evocative symbols that reflect the isolation of contemporary individuals in bustling urban spaces, their struggle with inner emptiness, and the lived realities of individuals in conservative societies—especially women. Her writing captures subtle emotional textures, foregrounding feelings of loneliness, fear, fragility, and the significance of fleeting, intimate details.
Her literary and intellectual works have been published across a range of Arab platforms and newspapers, including Arabi Post and Akhbar Al-Adab (Egypt), in addition to her contributions to cultural journalism and content writing for several prominent outlets such as Raseef22, Al-Manassa Platform, and Ruyaa Magazine.
She has received several awards and recognitions in literature and reading. Notably, she was the first Mauritanian girl to win at the national level of the Arab Reading Challenge international competition, and she was awarded the Ideal Citizenship Prize in Mauritania in 2019. She also won a short story competition on the Hikawi Kutub platform in 2017, where her story “I Wish I Hadn’t” was published. In 2018, her article “Let Us All Rebel” was selected as Article of the Month in Al-Sohba Cultural Magazine.
She has published four books, including two collaborative works: Playing on Emotions (2018, charisma Publishing) and I Am the Poet and the Critic’s Consciousness (2024, Afaq for Studies and Research). She also authored two individual books: O You Who Pass Through Fleeting Words (2021, Al-Rawi Publishing) and her poetry collection What We Hide in Our Empty Cigarette Boxes (2025, Rawafed Publishing).
Oum Al-Nasser has served as a jury member at the National Amateur Theatre Festival (2021) and as a judge for the Ghaith Al-Uqoul Creative Writing Competition between 2020 and 2022.
She is also an active cultural advocate, dedicated to expanding the presence of literature in public spaces.
I'm a young woman whose roots lie in the desert and nomadism.
But I'm a city girl, in spirit and origin.
And I'm in constant search of myself and freedom.
The nomadic way of life in the desert expanses seems to open up a seemingly limitless horizon of questioning and search for meaning. Yet this way of life also teaches fear, inculcates hypocrisy, requires you not to be yourself, to maintain a specificity that doesn't necessarily represent you, in whole or in part. And only accepts you if you adhere to its logic and renounce your right to choose in favor of laws and customs rooted among its members.
I chose a different path and decided to set off into the vast universe in search of my dispersed self.
Since wandering, rather than leaving, characterizes the Bedouin, my poems expose the pain of a young generation who, to put an end to their suffering, seek to leave to end their conflicts with society, the land and the harshness of life.
I repair myself by writing and expressing what I live and the existential anguish that invades my soul. I encourage my spirit to think of its salvation and redeem the inertia, rigidity and morality police that restrict the mind and imprison the soul.
Oum Nasser Mamine Sidaty
concert by Oum Nasser Mamine Siday & Zarah Bint Simali (ardîn) & Sophie Agnel (cordophone)
Arabic poems subtitled in English