Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Amadou Bâ Hampâté (* 1900 / 1901 in Bandiagara , Mali ; † 15. March 1991 in Abidjan , Cote d'Ivoire ) was a Malian writer and ethnologist . Between 1960 and 1970 he worked for UNESCO .

biography

Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born in Bandiagara ( Mali ) in 1900 or 1901 . As the son of Hampâté Bâ and Kadidja Pâté Poullo Diallo, he came from a noble family of the Fulbe . After his father's death, he was adopted by his mother's second husband, Tidjani Amadou Ali Thiam, a tukulör . He first attended the Koran school of Tierno Bokar , a religious leader of the Tijaniya Brotherhood, but was then obliged to attend the French school in Bandiagara and later in Djenné because of his noble descent . In 1915 he followed his wish to live with his mother and followed her to Kati , where he continued his studies.

When he was supposed to go to Gorée in 1921 for further training for the colonial administration, he refused. The governor then transferred him to Ouagadougou as a temporary clerk . From 1922 to 1932 he held several posts in the French colonial administration in Upper Volta (today: Burkina Faso ). Due to his noble descent, his knowledge of human nature and good quality work, he was able to rise in the administration.

In 1933 he spent another six months with his spiritual master Tierno Bokar and then went to Bamako until 1942 . When the brotherhood of the Tijaniya was persecuted by France from 1937 onwards, the rise of Amadou Hampâté Bâ within the colonial administration was over.

In 1942 he joined the Institut Francais d'Afrique Noire ( IFAN ) in Dakar at the invitation of Professor Théodore Monod . He took part in ethnological research and collected oral traditions from African peoples. He also wrote a study on the Massina Empire of the Fulbe . In 1951 he received a grant from UNESCO , which allowed him to go to Paris. There he met with Africanists like Marcel Griaule .

After Mali gained independence in 1960, he founded the Institute des Sciences Humaines in Bamako and represented his country at UNESCO meetings . In 1962 he was elected to the Executive Council of UNESCO. In 1966 he took part in the development of a uniform system for the transcription of African languages. In 1970 he resigned his mandate at UNESCO.

The last years up to his death on May 15, 1991 in Abidjan ( Côte d'Ivoire ) he devoted to literary work. He edited his collected notes on the oral tradition of West Africa and wrote down his own memory about the first 33 years of his life.

Literary work

From Amadou Hampâté Bâ's literary work, the notes from his early years are to be emphasized : Amkoullel l'enfant peul ( Eng .: hunter of the word), from his birth and origin to the refusal to continue the French training intended for him, and the connecting volume : Oui, mon commandant! , where he tells of his time as a civil servant in the colonial administration of Upper Volta. In addition, one of the important works is L'étrange destin du Wangrin ( Eng . The Strange Fate of Wangrin), for which he received the 1974 Great Literature Prize of Black Africa .

All of the works mentioned are characterized by Amadou Hampâté Bâ's positive attitude towards life. French colonial officials or business people are drawn with a twinkle in the eye who fail out of ignorance of African customs or because of their own too high civilizational claims. An African hero like Wangrin in L'étrange destin du Wangrin has a shrewd shrewdness that allows him to take advantage of European business and eliminate his foreign competitors. Only when Wangrin became increasingly distant from his African tradition and ignored its laws did he, like his European predecessors, fail before him. Amadou Hampâté Bâ's work should also be understood in this context. He does not reject the western world, but does not want to miss the African traditions as part of his own identity.

bibliography

• L'Empire peul du Macina, Paris 1955. (New edition: 1984)
• Vie et enseignement de Tierno Bokar, le sage de Bandiagara, Paris 1957. (New edition: 1980)
• Kaïdara, récit initiatique peul, 1969.
• L'étrange destin du Wangrin, 1973. (German: Wangrin strange fate or the cunning schemes of an African interpreter, Frankfurt 1986.)
• L'Éclat de la grande étoile, Paris 1976.
• Jésus vu par un musulman, Paris 1994.
• Petit Bodiel (conte peul) et version en prose de Kaïdara, Paris 1994.
• Njeddo Dewal mère de la calamité. Contes initiatiques peul, Paris 1994.
• La poignée de poussière, contes et récits du Mali, 1987.
• Amkoullel l'enfant peul. Mémoires I, Arles 1991. (Eng .: hunter of the word. A childhood in West Africa. Wuppertal ² 1995.)
• Oui mon commandant! Mémoires II, Arles 1994. (German: Oui, mon commandant! In colonial services. Wuppertal 1997.)

Web links

Wikiquote: Amadou Hampâté Bâ  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Amadou Hampâté Bâ in the catalog of the German National Library
• Web dossier : Africa Study Center , Leiden (in English)