Petit bodiel

by Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Ecrivain, historien, ethnologue, né en 1900 au Mali et mort en 1991 à Abidjan, A. Hampâté Bâ a contribué à fixer dans une langue magnifique les trésors de la littérature orale africaine.

Genres: Africa

224 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born to an aristocratic Fula family in Bandiagara, the largest city in Dogon territory and the capital of the precolonial Masina Empire. After his father's death, he was adopted by his mother's second husband, Tidjani Amadou Ali Thiam of the Toucouleur ethnic group. He first attended the Qur'anic school run by Tierno Bokar, a dignitary of the Tijaniyyah brotherhood, then transferred to a French school at Bandiagara, then to one at Djenné. In 1915, he ran away from school and rejoined his mother at Kati, where he resumed his studies.

In 1921, he turned down entry into the école normale in Gorée. As a punishment, the governor appointed him to Ouagadougou with the role he later described as that of "an essentially precarious and revocable temporary writer". From 1922 to 1932, he filled several posts in the colonial administration in Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso and from 1932 to 1942 in Bamako. In 1933, he took a six month leave to visit Tierno Bokar, his spiritual leader.(see also:Sufi studies)

In 1942, he was appointed to the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire (IFAN, French Institute of Black Africa) in Dakar thanks to the benevolence of Théodore Monod, its director. At IFAN, he made ethnological surveys and collected traditions. For 15 years he devoted himself to research, which would later lead to the publication of his work L'Empire peul de Macina (The Peul Empire of Macina). In 1951, he obtained a UNESCO grant, allowing him to travel to Paris and meet with intellectuals from Africanist circles, notably Marcel Griaule.

With Mali's independence in 1960, Bâ founded the Institute of Human Sciences in Bamako, and represented his country at the UNESCO general conferences. In 1962, he was elected to UNESCO's executive council, and in 1966 he helped establish a unified system for the transcription of African languages.

His term in the executive council ended in 1970, and he devoted the remaining years of his life to research and writing. He moved to Abidjan, and worked on classifying the archives of West African oral tradition that he had accumulated throughout his lifetime, as well as writing his memoirs (Amkoullel l'enfant peul and Oui mon commandant!, both published posthumously).

(source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Brina]

paaa luskano sam se ne veselim le commentaire, ki ga bom morala potegnit iz riti na izpitu😡

[David Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fable peul. Écrit par le grand Amadou Hampâté Bâ. Le lièvre - c'est l'homme, et sa façon de gagner sa vie et comme un politicien qui utilise des ruses capitalistes pour réussir. Ça ne termine pas bien...pour le lièvre.

[ジュリアン Len · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classique de la littérature africaine, le recueil de nouvelles d'Amadou Hampaté Ba est une petite merveille de sarcasme, magnifiquement écrit et tourné, c'est, selon moi, un ouvrage incontournable dans le paysage culturel Africain

[Samantha Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un conte africain.

[Nana Reads Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

c'était intéressant à lire mais rien de mémorable. Je n'ai pas vraiment aimé la plume de l'auteur.