Aminata Sow Fall

Aminata Sow Fall is a Senegalese-born author. While her native language is Wolof, her books are written in French.

Life

She was born 1941 in Saint-Louis, Senegal where she grew up before moving to Dakar to finish her secondary schooling. After this, she did a degree in Modern Languages in France and became a teacher upon returning to Senegal. She was a member of the Commission for Educational Reform responsible for the introduction of African literature into the French syllabus in Senegal, before becoming director of La Propriété littéraire (The Literary Property) in Dakar (1979-1988). She was appointed the first woman president of Senegal's Writer's Association in 1985. In 1990 she founded the publishing house Éditions Khoudia.

Awards

• 1980 - Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire for La Grève des bàttu.
• 1982 - Prix International Alioune Diop for L'Appel des arènes.
• 1997 - honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Writing

Her best known books include:

• Le Revenant, Nouvelles éditions africaines, 1976
• La Grève des bàttu (1979); Nouvelles éditions africaines, 1980; Serpent à plumes (paperback 2001), ISBN 2842612507
  • The Beggars' Strike, trans. Dorothy Blair, Longman (1986), ISBN 0582002435
• L'Appel des arènes (The Call of the Arena) (1982); Nouvelles éditions africaines, 1993
• Ex-père de la nation: roman, L'Harmattan, 1987
• Douceurs du bercail, Nouvelles Editions ivoiriennes, 1998
• Le jujubier du patriarche: roman, Serpent à Plumes, 1998
• Festins de la détresse: roman. Editions d'en bas. 2005. ISBN 9782829003189. http://books.google.com/books?id=v5EggaBeOpAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Aminata+Sow+Fall%22&hl=en&ei=o8wJTvTjINSu0AGyufR6&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

The film Battu (2000) by director Cheick Oumar Sissoko is based on her novel La Grève des bàttu.

Further reading

• Simon Gikandi, Encyclopedia of African Literature, Routledge (2002), pp.518-9. ISBN 0415230195
• Médoune Guèye, Aminata Sow Fall: Oralité et société dans l'oeuvre romanesque, Editions L'Harmattan (2005). ISBN 2747585573
• "An Interview with Aminata Sow Fall" African Affairs (London) (1988) 87(348): 419-430.
• Laïla Ibnlfassi, Nicki Hitchcott, ed. (1996). "Marxist Intertext, Islamic Reinscription?". African Francophone writing: a critical introduction. Berg. ISBN 9781859730140. http://books.google.com/books?id=-a9lmuEaDVsC&pg=PA163&dq=aminata+sow+fall&hl=en&ei=W8wJToe_BPK00AHI7LmcAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=aminata%20sow%20fall&f=false. 
• Ada Uzoamaka Azodo, Emerging Perspectives on Aminata Sow Fall: The Real and the Imaginary in her Novels, Africa World Press, 2007. ISBN 9781592215577