Cheikh Hamidou Kane
Writer (born 1928)
Family : Place of birth : Matam ; Date of birth : 2 April 1928 ; Mother : Yéya Racine Kane ; Father : Mamadou Lamine Kane
Education : At seven he was entrusted to the Qur’anic master Thierno Moctar Gadio, in Saldé. At nine he entered the French school in Louga, then the elite school in Saint-Louis and the Lycée Van-Vollenhoven in Dakar. From 1951 he studied at the Institut des hautes études de Dakar; in 1952 he continued in Paris (Lycée Louis-le-Grand, the Sorbonne: law and philosophy), then at the École nationale de la France d’outre-mer (1956).
Action : His novel Ambiguous Adventure (L’Aventure ambiguë, 1961) tells the education of Samba Diallo, torn between his homeland and the West. He received the Grand Prix littéraire d’Afrique noire in 1962. He published Les Gardiens du temple in 1995. An administrator from 1959, governor of Thiès in 1960, then High Commissioner for Planning in 1961, he served as a minister under Presidents Senghor and Diouf.
Legacy : Ambiguous Adventure has become a reference of African literature, for raising the question of relations between Africa and Europe at the time of independence. The Virtual University of Senegal took his name in 2023 (Université numérique Cheikh Hamidou Kane).