Event Details

Boubacar Boris Diop, Senegalese writer and journalist, will present “African Literature at the Crossroad of Languages." Acclaimed Senegalese novelist, essayist, and journalist Boubacar Boris Diop will speak about the challenges of African literatures written in colonial, global, and national languages. Diop is the author of eight novels, two novels in wolof, three books of essays, several plays and an opera. Four of his novels and a book of essays have appeared in English translation, including Murambi, the Book of Bones, inspired by his residence in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide of Tutsis. Murambi, the Book of Bones, called "a miracle" by author Toni Morrison, appears on the Zimbabwe International Book Fair's list of Africa's 100 best books of the 20th Century. His second novel in wolof, Bàmmeelu Kocc Barma (A Grave for Kocc Barma) was published in 2018.

Diop has lectured at many institutions in the world, and has taught at Rutgers University in the US, at Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis, Senegal, and in recent years, he has been teaching literature and creative writing at the American University of Nigeria. He has received many prizes and awards for his writing, including the 2018-19 Stellfox Visiting Scholars and Writers Program Award at Dickinson College.