This month we’ve been reading The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer. We’ll meet to discuss the book on June 23 at Arden Dimick Library at 10:30AM.

One of the things Hammer talks about is the Festival in the Desert, a music festival which took place in various locations in Mali from 2001 to 2012. The festival featured Tuareg music as well as music from around the world.

For security reasons, the festival has been dormant since 2012. The website The Festival in the Desert  has history, links, and videos.

Here are some videos from YouTube. The first shows several scenes from the 2011 festival:

Here’s a video form 2012 that includes a guest appearence from Bono: