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 licence in 'Modern Languages' in France and became a teacher upon returning to Senegal.^[1] She then worked for the National Reform Commission for the Teaching of French before becoming director of la Propriété littéraire (The Literary Property) in Dakar (1979-1988).^[2]

In 1997, Aminata Sow Fall was awarded an honorary degree by Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Writing

Her best known books include:

• Le Revenant, Nouvelles éditions africaines, 1976
• La Grève des bàttu (1979); Les 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.

References

Further reading

• Simon Gikandi, Encyclopedia of African Literature, Routledge (2002), ISBN 0415230195 - pp.518-9
• Médoune Guèye, Aminata Sow Fall: Oralité et société dans l'oeuvre romanesque, Editions L'Harmattan (2005), ISBN 2747585573 - in French
• "An Interview with Aminata Sow Fall" African Affairs (Lond) (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