Guest of the ilb 2001
Boubacar Boris Diop was born in 1946 in Dakar,
Senegal, where he attended a French school. Before completing secondary
education he described his experiences with racism in a novel, which
was never published. When he was 20 he adopted a middle name, taken
from a young Russian immigrant in Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel »Les chemins
de la liberté«. After completing a degree in Literature and
Philosophy he started teaching at a grammar school in Saint-Louis, in
northern Senegal. Here he began to focus his attention on Marxist
theory and founded an anti-colonial club which organized different
events including dances, or 'bals rouges', accompanied by political
speeches. In 1981 Diop published his first novel, 'Le temps de
Tamango' which won the Prix du Bureau Sénégalais du Droit
d’Auteur. He went on to work in journalism for Senegalese daily
newspapers and radio stations. In addition to further novels he
wrote plays, scripts, short stories and literary essays. Diop
received the Grand prix de la République du Sénégal pour les Lettres
for his second novel, 'Les tambours de la mémoire', published in
1990.
On the initiative of journalists Nocky Djedanoum and Maimouna
Coulibaly, Diop went to Kigali for two months in 1998 to take part in
the "Rwanda: écrire par devoir de mémoire" project along with other
artists. Diop’s novel, 'Murambi, le livre des ossements' is based
on accounts by survivors of the Tutsi genocide in 1994, when almosthalf
a million people were killed.
Diop presents a genuine link between European and African narrative
traditions based on 'authentic' African legends, as his mother ritually
claimed. 'Novel' is an inaccurate term for this genre. His
works deal repeatedly with the manipulation of history through
myths. The claim that reality and fiction cannot be clearly
separated takes form in a complex structure of time frames and
narrative threads. This does not apply to 'Murambi',
however. "I made this novel as simple as possible by not worrying
too much about formal devices, aesthetics or peculiarities in narrative
style", Diop stated in an interview.
"I want young people to be able to read, understand and discuss
it." Because he believes in the magical forces of symbolism but
does not want to allow the reader to escape into a certainty that the
story is far-fetched, Diop has only incorporated accounts which were
verified by third parties. According to the author, the real
issue in genocide reappraisal is not finding the right words, but the
danger that outsiders will suspect that survivors tend to exaggerate.
The author lives in Dakar and has been writing for 'Neue Zürcher
Zeitung' for several years. He recently published the novel 'Kaveena'
(2006) and a collection of essays, 'L'Afrique au-delà du miroir' (2007).
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