Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born in Bandiagara in 1900 or 1901, into a noble Fulani family; his father having died, he was adopted by his mother's second husband. A pupil at the Koranic school of Tierno Bokar, whose disciple he remained, he was conscripted into the French school. In 1921 he refused the teacher-training college at Gorée and became a temporary clerk in Ouagadougou; he served the colonial administration until 1942, then joined the Institut français d'Afrique noire in Dakar. A member of the executive board of UNESCO from 1962 to 1970 and ambassador to Côte d'Ivoire in 1968, he died in Abidjan in May 1991.

In the catalogue 1

• NovelThe Fortunes of WangrinL'Étrange Destin de WangrinAmadou Hampâté Bâ · 1973Literature