Aminata Sow Fall

Aminata Sow Fall (born April 27, 1941) is a Senegalese-born author. While her native language is Wolof, her books are written in French. She is considered "the first published woman novelist from francophone Black Africa".

Life She was born in Saint-Louis, Senegal, where she grew up before moving to Dakar to finish her secondary schooling. After this, she earned a degree in Modern Languages at the Sorbonne in Paris, 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 (1979–88).

Growing up in an education system designed and run by the French, Sow Fall was only exposed to a few names from African literature growing up, since this was a system that prioritised Western names and titles. With this experience of living and being educated in both non-Western Senegal and Western France, Sow Fall separated herself from other African writers, who, she expresses, often feel that they must situate themselves in relation to the West. She feels that African literature would gain from a sense of self-discovery through writing, a common experience for Western authors, and from leaving behind the self-consciousness which she feels many African authors have historically carried into their literature.

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

Sow Fall's books include: Le Revenant, Nouvelles Éditions africaines, 1976. . L'empire du mensonge (2018). ISBN 979-1035600068 Femmes d'Afrique (2001). ISBN 9782842612979 La Grève des bàttu (1979); Nouvelles Éditions africaines, 1980; Serpent à plumes (paperback 2001), The Beggars' Strike, trans. Dorothy Blair, Longman (1986). Extracts in Daughters of Africa, ed. Margaret Busby, 1992. L'Appel des arènes (The Call of the Arena) (1982); Nouvelles Éditions africaines, 1993. . Ex-père de la nation: roman, Paris: L'Harmattan, 1987. . Douceurs du bercail, Nouvelles Éditions ivoiriennes, 1998. . Le jujubier du patriarche: roman, Serpent à Plumes, 1998 Sur le flanc gauche du Belem. Arles: Actes Sud, 2002. . Un grain de vie et d'espérance. Paris: Françoise Truffaut éditions, 2002. .

L'Empire du mensonge, Le Serpent à Plumes, 2017. The film Battu (2000) by director Cheick Oumar Sissoko is based on Sow Fall's novel La Grève des bàttu.