Amadou Hampâté Bâ

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

Biography

Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born in 1900 or 1901 in Bandiagara (Mali). As the son of Hampâté Bâ and Kadidja Pâté Poullo Diallo he comes from a noble family of the Fulbe. After the death of his father, he is the second husband of his mother Tidjani Amadou Ali Thiam, a Tukulör, adopted. At first he attended Koranic school Tierno Bokar by, a religious leader Tidjaniya the Brotherhood, but then because of his noble descent, the French School in Bandiagara and obliged to visit later in Djenne. In 1915 he follows his desire to live with the mother and follows her to Kati, where he continues his studies.

When he is after Gorée for further training for the colonial administration in 1921, he refuses. The governor put him on as a temporary clerk to Ouagadougou. From 1922 to 1932 he held several positions in the French colonial administration in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). Through his noble birth, his knowledge of human nature and quality work, he succeeds in doing in the administration ascend.

In 1933 he spent a further six months at his spiritual master Tierno Bokar and then goes to 1942 to Bamako. When the Brotherhood of Tidjaniya followed in 1937 by France, it's over well with the rise of Amadou Bâ Hampâté within the colonial administration.

In 1942 he occurs due to an invitation by Professor Théodore Monod in the Institut Francais d' Afrique Noire ( IFAN ) in Dakar. He participates in ethnological studies and collects oral traditions of African peoples. In addition, he wrote a study on the Massina Empire of the Fulbe. In 1951 he received a scholarship from UNESCO, which allows him to go to Paris. There he meets with Africanists such as Marcel Griaule.

After the independence of Mali in 1960, he founded the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako and represents his country at the meetings of UNESCO. In 1962 he was elected to the Executive Board of UNESCO. In 1966 he participates in the development of a uniform system for the transcription of African languages ​​. In 1970 he resigned his mandate to UNESCO.

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

Literary work

These from Amadou Hampâté Bas literary work are the records of his early life: Amkoullel l' enfant peul (German: Raiders of the word) to continue the thing it was French training of his birth and origin to the refusal, and the terminal band: Oui, mon commandant! , where he recounts his time as a civil servant in the colonial administration upper Volta. In addition, one of the most important works L' étrange destin you Wangrin (Eng. The strange fate Wangrins ), for which he was awarded the 1974 Grand Prize for Literature from black Africa.

All of these plants offer a positive attitude Amadou Hampâté BAS towards life. French colonial officials or businessmen are drawn with a twinkling eye that fail because of ignorance of African practices or on their own set too high civilizational claims. An African hero like Wangrin in L' étrange destin you Wangrin has a shrewd cunning that allows him the European doing business advantage to make and turn off its foreign competitors. Only when Wangrin more and more from his African tradition and ignored their laws, he fails even as its European predecessors before him. In this context, Amadou Hampâté BAS work is to understand. He rejects the Western world not from, but do not want to miss the African traditions as part of their own identity.

Bibliography

• . L'Empire du Macina peul, Paris, 1955 ( reprint: 1984 )
• . Vie en enseignement de Tierno Bokar, le say de Bandiagara, Paris, 1957 ( reprint: 1980 )
• Kaïdara, récit initiatique peul, 1969.
• L' étrange destin you Wangrin, 1973 ( Eng.: Wangrin strange fate or the crafty intrigues 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 ) version et 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. I Mémoires, Arles 1991. (German: Raiders of the word A childhood in West Africa Wuppertal ² 1995.. . )
• Oui mon commandant! Mémoires II, Arles, 1994 ( Eng.: Qui, mon commandant in colonial services Wuppertal 1997! .. ).