Rimbaud's House

The house traditionally identified as Rimbaud's in Harar is a large two-storey building with a wraparound veranda on the upper floor — the kind of colonial-era merchant's house that would have been comfortable by the standards of late 19th-century East Africa. It has been converted into a small museum with photographs documenting Rimbaud's years here and some period artefacts.

The poet Arthur Rimbaud lived and traded in Harar from 1880 until illness forced him to leave for Marseille in 1891, where he died shortly afterward at the age of 37. He wrote nothing during his Harar years — a silence almost as famous as the poetry he produced before arriving. The museum is modest in scope, but the building itself, in its neighbourhood of the old city, is atmospheric enough to make the detour worthwhile.

things to do museum sight
A story
Arthur Rimbaud arrived in Harar in 1880, abandoning poetry entirely at age 26. He spent the rest of his life here as a merchant and arms dealer, never writing another verse. The house now bearing his name may not actually be the one he lived in — the evidence is disputed — but his presence in this remote city remains one of literature's stranger footnotes.