Tierno Monénembo

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Tierno Monénembo (Thierno Saïdou Diallo) was born in Guinea in 1947. He would later live in Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, and finally France in 1973. He is among the leading lights of Francophone African literature. His most noted book is said to be Pelourinho which was set in Brazil. He has written eight books in all.

For the English speaking world his significance was more for being one of the African authors invited to Rwanda after the 1994 Tutsi-Hutu massacre to "write genocide into memory." From this came the novel The Oldest Orphan. The 2004 translation by the University of Nebraska may be his most successful book in the English language. Although in general he remains primarily a figure of the French-speaking world.