Ousmane Sembene: The Making of a Militant Artist

"Samba Gadjigo is carrying Sembene's torch forward, with this, the first part of a tow-volume biography. This is a work that reflects both a high level of scholarship and the deep commitment to African progress that Sembene embodied." ---Danny Glaver from the forword

"Samba Gadjigo has undertaken a very important task, that of writing the first biography of one of the best-known and most influential African writers - and the founder of the continent's cinema - Ousmane Sembene." ---Christopher L. Miller, author of the french Attantic Trangle

"Samba Gadjigo's book is both biography and demystification. It exposes the situations and historical moments which created Sembene the artist. Concisely and convincingly written, this in-vestigation of the life of a man who inhabited various intellectual, artistic, and political spaces is an eloquent duty of memory."

Samba Gadjigo presents a unique personal portrait and intellectual history of novelist and filmmaker Ousmane Sembene. Though Sembene has persistently deflected attetion away from his personality, his life, and his past, Gadjigo has had unprecedented access to the artist and his family. This book is the first comprehensive biography of Sembene and contributes a critical appraisal of his life and art in the context of the political and social influences on his work. Beginning with Sembene's life in Casamance, Senegal, and ending with his militant career as a dockworker in Marseilles, Gadjigo places Sembene into the context of African colonial and postcolonial culture and charts his achievements in film and literature. This landmark book reveals the inner workings of one of Africa's most distinguished and controversial figures.

Samba Gadjigo is Professor of French at Mount Holyoke College. He is author of Ecole blanche, Afrique noire: L'image de l'ecole coloniale dans le roman africaine francophone and editor of Ousmane Sembene: Dialogue with Critics and Writers. He has directed a documentary on Sembene's film Moolaade.