Great voices of Senegalese literature — Birago Diop and Mariama Bâ

1947 / 1979 · Dakar

In 1947, the Senegalese poet and physician Birago Diop published Tales of Amadou Koumba — stories from the oral tradition passed down by his family's griot. It is one of the first great books of African literature in French. In 1979, Mariama Bâ published So Long a Letter, a novel about the lives of women in Senegal that received the Noma Award, Africa's highest literary honour. Two Senegalese voices that touched readers around the world.

Sources

• Présence Africaine — Les Contes d'Amadou Koumba
• Cairn — « 12 décembre 1906. Birago Diop naît au milieu de l’Afrique des griots »
• B. Diop, Les contes d’Amadou-Koumba (Google Books)
• HAL — « Place et rôle de l’oralité dans la critique littéraire africaniste »

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