Birago Diop

West African Story teller, or Griot

During his time in France as a veterinary student, Diop met numerous African, African-American and Caribbean students,[2] among them Léopold Sédar Senghor, who later went on to become Senegal's first president after its independence. Inspired by these young black intellectuals, artists and poets, Diop drafted his earliest poems in L'étudiant noir ("the black student") - a student review that established the idea of the Négritude movement, which protested against the assimilation theory in favour of African cultural values.[6]

During his work as the head of the government's cattle-inspection service for several regions in Senegal and Mali,[3] he was introduced to traditional folktales, most of which he committed to memory. These served as the main inspiration for much of his literary work. Indeed, most of his poems and tales have their roots in oral African traditions. Generally recited to a group at night by a professional storyteller, called a griot, folktales were repeated in different places by the people who heard them. These ceremonies commonly consisted of songs and dances in addition to these folktales. Although the tales served as entertainment, they also had the greater purpose of teaching younger generations about the beliefs and values of their ancestors.[7] By combining his mastery of the French language with his experience with African folktakes, Diop was able to spread the values and beliefs of his ancestors throughout the world.

In the early 1940s, during World War II, Diop was forced to return to France for two years.[2] Homesick, he began writing down adaptions of folktales as advised by his fellow Negritude writers.[3] The following excerpt illustrating his homesickness can be found in "The Humps":

"Here, far from my home in Senegal, my eyes are surrounded by closed horizons. When the greens of summer and the russets of autumn have passed, I seek the vast expanses of the Savannah, and find only bare mountains, sombre as ancient prostrate giants that the snow refuses to bury because of their misdeed...." (from "The Humps").[2]

When Diop finally returned to Africa, he served as a director of zoological technical services in Ivory Coast and Upper Volta (modern day Burkina Faso). His first literary piece Les Contes d'Amadou Koumba was published in 1947.[3] The work, totaling three volumes, managed to earn him the Grand prix littéraire award.[8] Each volume contained a collection of short stories: animal-centred tales he directly transcribed from the griot Amadou Koumba's accounts.[3] These tales provided a combination of humor, fantasy and realism where people, supernatural beings, and animals interacted.[2]

As soon as Senegal gained its independence, Diop was nominated as the first Senegalese ambassador in Tunisia. Upon accepting this position, he claimed to have "broken his pen," suggesting that he was ready to give up writing altogether and focus on his diplomatic career. It was not until the mid-1970s, towards the end of his life, that his "pen was mended." He published La plume raboutée in 1978, followed by À rebrousse-temps (1982), À rebrousse-gens (1982), and Senegal du temps de...(1986).[8]