Boubacar Boris Diop
Boubacar Boris Diop (* 1946 in Dakar , Senegal) is a multi-award-winning Senegalese writer, journalist and screenwriter. He became famous for his novel about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 "Murambi, le livre des ossements", which was named one of the best 100 books by African authors at the 2000 Harare International Book Fair .
Childhood and youth
Boubacar Boris Diop attended a French school and wrote a novel about his experiences with racism before graduating from high school , but it was never published. At the age of 20 he chose his middle name based on the model of the young Russian emigrant in Jean-Paul Sartre's novel "Les chemins de la Liberté". After studying literature and philosophy in Dakar , he became a teacher at a school in northern Senegal. Influenced by Marxist theories, he founded an anti-colonial school club that organized political and cultural events, such as the “bal rouge”.
Literary work
In 1981 Diop's first novel, Le temps de tamango , was published and awarded the Prix du Bureau Sénégalais du Droit d'Auteur . As a result, Diop wrote other short stories, plays, scripts and literary essays. In addition, Diop worked for various Senegalese daily newspapers and radio programs, and later also for foreign newspapers such as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . In 1990 he received the Grand Prix de la République Sénégal for his second novel Les Tambours de la mémoire , published in the same year .
In 1998 Diop traveled to Rwanda as a member of a delegation of African writers . The literature project Rwanda: Écrire par devoir de mémoire , launched on the initiative of journalists Nocky Djendanoum and Maimouna Coulibaly, invited ten African writers to travel to Rwanda and write about the 1994 genocide. Murambi, le livre des ossements was published in 2000 (German: Murambi, the book of bones , 2010).
Diop's most recent novel Doomi Golo is written in Wolof , his mother tongue .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Diop, Boubacar Boris |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Senegalese writer, journalist and screenwriter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1946 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dakar , Senegal |