Bernard Binlin Dadié

Bernard Binlin Dadié (or sometimes Bernard Dadie) (born 10 January 1916 in Assinie) is a prolific Ivorian novelist, playwright, poet, and ex-administrator. Among many other senior positions, starting in 1957, he held the post of Minister of Culture in the government of Côte d'Ivoire from 1977 to 1986.

Biography

Dadié was born in Assinie, Côte d'Ivoire, and attended the local Catholic school in Grand Bassam and then the Ecole William Ponty.

He worked for the French government in Dakar, Senegal, but on returning to his homeland in 1947 became part of its movement for independence. Before Côte d'Ivoire's independence in 1960, he was detained for sixteen months for taking part in demonstrations that opposed the French colonial government.[1]

In his writing, influenced by his experiences of colonialism as a child, Dadié attempts to connect the messages of traditional African folktales with the contemporary world. With Germain Coffi Gadeau and F. J. Amon d'Aby, he founded the Cercle Culturel et Folklorique de la Côte d'Ivoire (CCFCI) in 1953.[2] His humanism and desire for the equality and independence of Africans and their culture is also prevalent.

He was rediscovered with the release of the Steven Spielberg's 1997 movie "Amistad"[3] which features the music by American composer John Williams.[4] The choral text of Dadié's poem "Dry Your Tears, Afrika" (“Sèche Tes Pleurs“) is used for a song of the same name. Published in 1967, this poem is basically about Africa and her sons and daughters returning home. It focuses on healing the wounds of slavery, colonialism, and neo-colonialism. This poem was actually translated into Mende, a language spoken by ~ 46% of Sierra Leone, for the song.

He turned 100 in January 2016.[5]

Awards

Bernard Dadié has won many trophees in his literary career, the most recent being the Grand Prix des Mécènes of the GPLA 2016.[6]

Main works

"I Thank You God"

Dadié is famous for his work "I Thank You, God" (translated here by Ibe Nwoga):

"I thank you God for creating me black,
For having made me
the total of all sorrows,
and set upon my head
The World.
I wear the lively of the Centaur
And I carry the world since the first morning.
White is a colour improvised for an occasion
Black, the colour of all days
And I carry the World since the first evening.
I am happy
with the shape of my head
fashioned to carry the World,
satisfied
With the shape of my nose,
which should breathe all the air of the World,
happy
With the form of my legs
prepared to run through all the stages of the World.
I thank you God for creating me black
For making of me
Porter of all sorrows..
Still I am
Glad to carry the World,
Glad of my short arms
Of my long arms
Of the thickness of my lips..
I thank you God for creating me black
White is a colour for special occasions
Black the colour for every day
And i have carried the World since the dawn of time
And my laugh over the World, through the night, creates the Day.
I thank you, God for creating me black"

References

  1. ↑ Hans M. Zell, Carol Bundy & Virginia Coulon (eds), A New Reader's Guide to African Literature, Heinemann Educational Books, 1983; p. 373.
  2. ↑ Wangar Wa Nyateũ-Waigwa, in Simon Gikandi, ed., Encyclopedia of African Literature. Routledge; 2002. ISBN 978-0-415-23019-3
  3. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118607/?ref_=nv_sr_1
  4. ↑ John Williams
  5. ↑ Staff (2016-02-14). "Littérature: Bernard Dadié, l’orfèvre des vers, fête ses 100 ans d’existence avec un prix mondial (Portrait)" (in French). abidjan.net. Retrieved 2017-02-19.
  6. ↑ Source: Camer.be
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