Camara Laye

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Camara Laye
Born	1928 Kouroussa, Guinea
Died	1980 Dakar, Senegal
Nationality	Guinea/Mandé
Notable work(s)	L'Enfant noir (trans. as "The African Child" or "The Dark Child")
Notable award(s)	Prix Charles Veillon

Camara Laye (b. 1928 in Kouroussa, Guinea - d. 1980 in Dakar, Senegal) was a renowned African writer from Guinea. During college he wrote The African Child (L'enfant Noir in French), a novel based loosely on his own childhood. He would later become a writer of many essays and was a foe of the government of Guinea.

He was born Malinke, or Mandé, a group that traditionally supplied the blacksmiths and goldsmiths of Guinea. His mother was from the village of Tindican, and his immediate childhood surroundings were not predominantly influenced by French culture. He attended both the Koranic and French elementary schools in Kouroussa. At age fourteen he went to Conakry, capital of Guinea, to continue his education. He attended vocational studies in motor mechanics. In 1947, he travelled to Paris to continue studies in mechanics. There he worked and took further courses in engineering and worked towards the baccalauréat.

In 1953, he published his first novel, L'Enfant noir (The African Child, 1954, also published under the title The Dark Child), an autobiographical story, which narrates in the first person a journey from childhood in Kouroussa, through challenges in Conakry, to France. The book won the Prix Charles Veillon in 1954. L'Enfant noir was followed by Le Regard du roi (1954; The Radiance of the King, 1956). These two novels are among the very earliest major works in francophone African literature.

In 1956, Camara returned to Africa, first to Dahomey (now Benin), then Gold Coast (now Ghana) and then to newly independent Guinea, where he held government posts. In 1965, he left Guinea for Dakar, Senegal because of political issues, never to return. In 1966 his third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa, 1968), was published. In 1978 his fourth and final work was published, Le Maître de la parole - Kouma Lafôlô Kouma (The Guardian of the Word, 1980), based on a Malian epic, as told by the griot Babou Condé, about the famous Sundiata Keita (also spelled Sunjata), the thirteenth-century founder of the Mali Empire.

Camara's authorship of Le Regard du Roi has been questioned. Literary scholar Adele King, in her book Rereading Camara Laye ^[1] makes a strong case for the assertions that Camara Laye had considerable help in writing L'Enfant Noir and did not write Le Regard du Roi at all. King makes the further claim that "Laye, an African who was not an anticolonialist, was used by a French government eager to promote the French Union" ^[1]

Camara died in Dakar, Senegal of a kidney infection.

Note: Laye's given name is Laye, and his family name is Camara.