Ahmadou Kourouma
Ahmadou Kourouma (born November 24, 1927 in Togobala or Boundiali, Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), † December 11, 2003 in Lyon ) was an Ivorian writer .
Life
Ahmadou Kourouma was born in Togobala or Boundiali - in the north of the Ivory Coast - in 1927 as the son of a Muslim merchant family. He attended the French school in Bamako ( Mali ). He was expelled from school for participating in a student protest. When he refused to do his military service in Algeria , he was transferred to Indochina . After his military service studied Kourouma in Lyon mathematics and worked after graduation as an actuary again in Ivory Coast.
In 1963, Kourouma wrote his first and only play: Le diseur de vérité . However, it was canceled immediately after the premiere in Abidjan . Kourouma fell out of favor with the President of Côte d'Ivoire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny , was imprisoned for a few months and then had to go into exile in Algeria (1964–1969), Cameroon (1974–1984) and Togo (1984–1994) live before he was allowed to return.
In 1970 he published his first novel: Le Soleil des indépendances , which immediately attracted a lot of attention. But it wasn't until the early 1990s that Kourouma turned back to writing and, with this and his subsequent works, confirmed the reputation of being a critical witness of modern Africa. In 1990 he was awarded the Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique noire for the second novel: Monnè, outrages et défis . In 2000 he received the Prix Renaudot and the Prix Goncourt des lycéens for Allah n'est pas obligé .
Kourouma died in Lyon in 2003 at the age of 76. His unfinished work Quand on refuse, on dit non , in which he dealt with the internal conflicts of his homeland, was published posthumously in 2004.
Since 2004, a Prix Ahmadou Kourouma prize has been awarded annually by the International Book Salon and Press in Geneva . The award is given to a novel or essay that deals with Africa south of the Sahara .
Literary work
His literary themes and style make Ahmadou Kourouma an important author in contemporary Africa.
He is one of the first African writers who does not belong to the Négritude . The theme of Kourouma's work is not the positive emphasis on African values, but the reflection of contemporary problems in Africa from their past to the present, from their external causes to their internal ones. For example, the novel: En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages is based on the bloody biography of the former head of state of Togo, Gnassingbé Eyadéma . In: Allah n'est pas obligé he tells of a child who takes part in the ethnic conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia as a child soldier . The author takes a critical look at all current African identities, be it the African tradition or the adopted Western norms.
The second important feature in Kourouma's work is language. He described his task as follows: “I translate Malinke into French and give up French in order to find and restore the African rhythm.” Deeply rooted in the origins of the Malinke people, he resorts to the stylistic devices of African narrative traditions such as the Griots . This is how proverbs flow into his stories. The literary language is close to oral speech.
Works
- The Prince of Horodougou. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1978. (Original Les Soleils des indépendances , German new edition 2004 as The Last Prince ).
- Monnè: shame and anger. Diaphanes, 2013, ISBN 978-3-03734-323-4 . (Original title: Monnè, outrages et défis , Seuil, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-02-034964-7 .)
- Le Diseur de vérité. Acoria, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-912525-14-4 . (Play)
- Yacouba, le chasseur africain. Gallimard-Jeunesse, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-07-052168-0 .
- Le chasseur, heros africain. Grandir, Orange 1999, ISBN 2-84166-124-5 .
- Le Griot, homme de paroles. Grandir, Orange 1999, ISBN 2-84166-125-3 .
- The nights of the great hunter. Unionsverlag 2002, ISBN 3-293-20236-5 . (Original En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages , Paris 1998 ISBN 2-02-033142-X )
- Allah doesn't have to be righteous . 2nd edition Goldmann, 2004 ISBN 3-442-45732-7 (Original Allah n'est pas obligé. Paris 2002 ISBN 2-02-052571-2 )
- Quand on refuse, on dit non. Seuil, Paris 2004 ISBN 2-02-068022-X (unfinished)
Articles and reviews
- Kian-Harald Karimi: African passages between yesterday and today: On the trail of urban life from Mongo Beti's 'La ville cruelle' to Alain Mabanckou's 'Black Bazar'. In: Ursula Hennigfeld (Ed.): Not only Paris. Metropolitan and urban spaces in contemporary French-language literature. Transcript, Bielefeld 2012 ISBN 978-3-8376-1750-4 pp. 125–152 (also on 'En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages')
- Kian-Harald Karimi: La nuit dure longtemps mais le jour finit par arriver. Tropical dictators on the test bench of hybrid linguistics, in: "En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages" by Ahmadou Kourouma and "El otoño del patriarca" by Gabriel García Márquez . In: René Ceballos, Cornelia Sieber et al. (Eds.): Passages: Hybridity, Transmédialité, Transculturalidad. Olms, Hildesheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-487-14288-3 , pp. 557-571
Web links
- Literature by and about Ahmadou Kourouma in the catalog of the German National Library
- Marabout side
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kourouma, Ahmadou |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Ivorian writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 24, 1927 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Togobala or Boundiali, Ivory Coast |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 11, 2003 |
| Place of death | Lyon |