Bernard Binlin Dadié

Bernard Binlin Dadié studied at École normale supérieure William Ponty. The recorded working language is Middle French. The field of work recorded is literature. Employment is recorded with Institut français d'Afrique noire. Positions recorded include minister. Works named in the authority record are Climbié and Patron de New-York. Distinctions recorded are Grand prix littéraire en poésie d'Afrique noire, Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II, Grand Officer of the National Order of the Ivory Coast and Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit.

• Name — Bernard Binlin Dadié • Born — 10 January 1916 • Birthplace — Assinie-Mafia • Died — 9 March 2019 • Citizenship — Ivory Coast • Occupation — Poet, Writer, Politician, Screenwriter, Playwright

Dadié was born in Assinie, Côte d'Ivoire, and attended the local Catholic school in Grand Bassam and then the Ecole William Ponty. He worked for the French government in Dakar, Senegal, at the Institut français d’Afrique noire, then returned to his homeland in 1947. He became part of its movement for independence. Before Côte d'Ivoire's independence in 1960, he was detained for sixteen months for taking part in demonstrations that opposed the French colonial government. In his writing, influenced by his experiences of colonialism as a child, Dadié attempts to connect the messages of traditional African folktales with the contemporary world. With Germain Coffi Gadeau and F. J. Amon d'Aby, he founded the Cercle Culturel et Folklorique de la Côte d'Ivoire (CCFCI) in 1953. In 1955, he published a collection called The Black Cloth: A Collection of African Folktales (in French). Dadié was rediscovered with the release of Steven Spielberg's 1997 movie Amistad which features the music by American composer John Williams. The choral text of Dadié's poem, "Dry Your Tears, Afrika" (“Sèche Tes Pleurs“) is used for a song of the same name. Published in 1967, the poem is about coming home to Africa. Dadié was the brother of politician Hortense Aka-Anghui. He turned 100 in January 2016 and died in Abidjan in March 2019 at the age of 103.

• Afrique debout (1950) • Légendes africaines (1954) • Le pagne noir (1955) • La ronde des jours (1956) • Climbié (1956) • Un Nègre à Paris (1959) • Patron de New York (1964) • Hommes de tous les continents (1967) • La ville où nul ne meurt (1969) • Monsieur Thôgô-Gnini (1970) • Les voix dans le vent (1970) • Béatrice du Congo (1970) • Îles de tempête (1973) • Papassidi maître-escroc (1975) • Mhoi cheul (1979) • Opinions d'un nègre (1979) • Les belles histoires de Kacou Ananzè • Commandant Taureault et ses nègres (1980) • Les jambes du fils de Dieu (1980) • Carnets de prison (1981) – details his time in prison • Les contes de Koutou-as-Samala (1982) • Escale dans le temps: le combat pour la dignité de l'Afrique (2017)

Bernard Binlin Dadié is recorded as having received Grand prix littéraire en poésie d'Afrique noire, Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II and Grand Officer of the National Order of the Ivory Coast.