Born: 1970s, Gabon
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is republished from the US State Department. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Born in Gabon to a Malian Muslim father and a Gabonese mother, Aïda Touré has always been intrigued by the Origin of the Creation.
After a peaceful childhood nurtured by loving parents, she pursued high school in France where the rigid structures and compulsions of formal education began to stir in her the urgency to embrace her innermost inclinations which revolved around some intense yet still undefined Arts.
In 1995, she moved to New York to study music and on that creative journey, she was drawn to Islam; the sublimity of its inner motions inspired her to compose poetic works of a spiritual nature which reflect the state of divine remembrance.
In 2000, she released her first collection of Sufi poetry “Unmanifest Poems,” which was followed in 2001 by “The Sublime Sphere.” In 2003 “Nocturnal Light” was released.
In 2005, during the reading of one of her poems, she was overcome with inner images of immense beauty. Thus she suddenly began to paint the spiritual themes in her poetry. She calls her artwork “Visual Sufi Poetry“.