Martial Sinda

Martial Sinda (1935 – 16 July 2025) was a Congolese poet and politician of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI).

Life and career Born in Kinkala District in 1935, Sinda completed a writing apprenticeship under Jean Malonga. He won the Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique Equatoriale française in 1956, which caused a scandal and was saved from expulsion from French Equatorial Africa by Léopold Sédar Senghor and . In 1961, he defended a thesis at the University of Paris on Kimbanguism titled "Le messianisme congolais et ses incidences politiques depuis son apparition jusqu'à l'époque de l'indépendance, 1921-1961". In 1972, he published Le Messianisme congolais et ses incidences politiques, kimbanguisme, matsouanisme, autres mouvements, which won him the of the Académie des sciences d'outre-mer. In 1992, he was elected to the Senate for the MCDDI. In August 2011, he received an honorary doctorate from the in Kinshasa.

Martial Sinda died on 16 July 2025.

Publications Premier chant du départ (1955) Le Messianisme congolais et ses incidences politiques, kimbanguisme, matsouanisme, autres mouvements (1972) André Matsoua : fondateur du mouvement de libération du Congo (1977) Simon Kimbangu : prophète et martyr zaïrois (1977) "L'État africain postcolonial : les forces sociales et les communautés religieuses dans l'État postcolonial en Afrique" (Présence Africaine, 1983)