Boubacar Boris Diop

Boubacar Boris Diop ( born 1946 in Dakar, Senegal) is a multiple award -winning Senegalese writer, journalist and screenwriter. He became famous especially with his novel about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 " Murambi, le livre des ossements " which was honored at the International Book Fair in Harare in 2000 one of the best 100 books of African authors.

Childhood and youth

Boubacar Boris Diop attended a French school and wrote already before graduation a novel about his experiences with racism, which was never published. At 20, he chose his middle name after the model of the young Russian emigre 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 the north of Senegal. Under the influence of Marxist theories, he founded here an anti-colonial student club that organized political and cultural events, such as the "bal rouge".

Literary creation

In 1981, Diop's first novel, " Le temps de tamango ", published and awarded the Prix du Bureau du droit d' auteur Sénégalais. As a result, Diop wrote more short stories, plays, screenplays and literary essays. In addition, Diop worked for various Senegalese newspapers and radio broadcasts, later also for foreign newspapers, such as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In 1990 he received the Grand Prix de la République Sénégal for his published in the same year second novel " Les Tambours de la mémoire ".

In 1998 he traveled Diop as a member of a delegation of African writers to Rwanda. The initiative of the journalists Nocky Djendanoum and Maimouna Coulibaly launched Literature Project Rwanda: ecrire par devoir de mémoire had invited ten African writers to travel to Rwanda and to write about the genocide in 1994. " Murambi, le livre des ossements " was released in 2000 ( German: Murambi, the Book of Bones, March 2010).

Diop's last published novel " Doomi golo " is written in his native language, Wolof.