Ousmane Sembène

Descended from a Serer family through his mother from the line of Matar Sène, Ousmane Sembène was particularly drawn to Serer religious festivals. He especially was intrigued by the Tuur festival.

Ousmane Sembène studied at Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. The recorded working language is French and Wolof. Places of work recorded in the authority are Senegal. Works named in the authority record are God's Bits of Wood, Black Girl, Mandabi, Xala, Ceddo and Moolaadé. Work by Ousmane Sembène is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Legion of Honour, Carrosse d'or, Prix Jean Vigo and Un Certain Regard.

• Name — Ousmane Sembène • Born — 1 January 1923 • Birthplace — Ziguinchor, Casamance, French West Africa (now Senegal) • Died — 9 June 2007 • Place of death — Dakar, Senegal • Occupation — Film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, author • Years Active — 1956–2003 • Language — Wolof, French • Notable Works — * Borom Sarret (1963) • Black Girl (1966) • Mandabi (1968) • Website — Official website

The son of a fisherman and his wife, Ousmane Sembène was born in Ziguinchor in Casamance to a Lebou family. From childhood he was exposed to the Serer religion through his mother's people, especially the Tuur festival, in which he was made "cult servant". Although the Tuur demands offerings of curdled milk to the ancestral spirits (Pangool), Sembène did not take his responsibility as cult servant seriously and was known for drinking the offerings made to the ancestors. Some of his adult work draws on Serer themes. His maternal grandmother reared him and greatly influenced him. Women play a major role in his works. Sembène's knowledge of French and basic Arabic besides Wolof, his mother tongue, followed his attendance at a madrasa, as was common for many Muslim boys, and a French school until 1936, when he clashed with the principal. Sembène worked with his father—he was prone to seasickness—until 1938. At the age of fifteen, he moved to Dakar, where he worked in a variety of manual labour jobs. In 1944, during World War II and after the Fall of France, Sembène was drafted into the Senegalese Tirailleurs (a corps of the French Army). His later World War II service was with the Free French Forces. After the war, he returned to his home country. In 1947 he participated in a long railroad strike, on which he later based his seminal novel God's Bits of Wood (1960). Late in 1947, Sembène stowed away to reach France, where he worked at a Citroën factory in Paris. He went south to work on the docks at Marseille, where he became active in the French trade union movement. He joined the communist-led CGT and the Communist party, helping to lead a strike to hinder shipment of weapons for the French colonial war in Vietnam. During this time, he discovered the Harlem Renaissance writer Claude McKay and the Haitian Marxist writer Jacques Roumain.

Sembène taught himself to read and write in French. He drew on many of his life experiences in his debut novel, Le Docker Noir, written in French (1956, later published in English as The Black Docker). This was the story of Diaw, an African stevedore who faces racism and mistreatment on the docks at Marseille. Diaw writes a novel, which is later stolen by a white woman and published under her name. When he confronts her, he accidentally kills her. He is tried and executed in scenes highly reminiscent of Albert Camus's The Stranger (1942, also translated as The Outsider). Though Sembène focuses particularly on the mistreatment of African immigrants, he also details the oppression of Arab and Spanish workers. He demonstrates that the issues concern xenophobia as much as they do race. This is written in a social realist mode, as was much of his subsequent fiction. His debut marked the beginning of Sembène's literary reputation. The success of this novel provided enough financial return for him to continue writing. Sembène's second novel, O Pays, mon beau peuple! (Oh country, my beautiful people!, 1957), tells the story of Oumar. He is an ambitious black Senegalese farmer who returns to his native Casamance with a new white wife and ideas for modernizing the area's agricultural practices. Oumar struggles against both the French colonial government and the village social order, and he is eventually murdered. O Pays, mon beau peuple! was an international success, and Sembène received invitations from around the world, particularly from Communist countries such as China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Sembène's third and most famous novel is Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (God's Bits of Wood, 1960); most critics consider it his masterpiece, rivaled only by Xala. The novel is a fictional treatment of the railroad strike on the Dakar-Niger line, which lasted from 1947 to 1948. Although the charismatic and brilliant union spokesman, Ibrahima Bakayoko, is the most central figure, the novel has no true hero except the community itself. The people band together in the face of hardship and oppression to assert their rights. Accordingly, the novel features nearly fifty characters in both Senegal and neighboring Mali, showing the strike from all possible angles. Sembène followed Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu with the short fiction collection Voltaïque (Tribal Scars, 1962). The collection contains short stories, tales, and fables, including "La Noire de..." which he would later adapt as his first film. In 1964, he released l'Harmattan (The Harmattan), an epic novel about a referendum for independence that takes place in an African capital. From 1962 to 1963, Sembène studied filmmaking for a year at Gorky Film Studio, Moscow, under Soviet director Mark Donskoy. Also studying there was Sarah Maldoror, a French-Guadeloupean artist who became the first woman to make a feature film in Africa.

With the 1965 publication of the novellas Le mandat, précédé de Vehi-Ciosane (The Money Order and White Genesis), Sembène's emphasis began to shift. Just as he had once attacked the racial and economic oppression conducted by the French colonial government, with these works he turned his attention to the corrupt African elites who followed during independence. He was among the contributors to the magazine Lotus, which was launched in Cairo in 1968 and financed by Egypt and the Soviet Union. Sembène continued this theme with the novel Xala (1973), the story of El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye, a rich businessman. On the very night of his wedding to his beautiful, young third wife, El Hadji suffers impotence ("xala" in Wolof), and believes it to be caused by a curse. Le Dernier de l’empire (The Last of the Empire, 1981), Sembène's last novel, depicts corruption and an eventual military coup in a newly independent African nation. His paired 1987 novellas Niiwam et Taaw (Niiwam and Taaw) continue to explore social and moral collapse in urban Senegal. On the strength of Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu and Xala, Sembène is considered one of the leading figures in African postcolonial literature. Samba Gadjigo notes that his influence reached audiences beyond francophone Africa: "Of Sembène's ten published literary works, seven have been translated into English".

Ousmane Sembène died on 9 June 2007, at the age of 84. He had been ill since December 2006, and died at his home in Dakar, Senegal, where he was buried in a shroud adorned with Quranic verses. Sembène was survived by three sons from two marriages. Seipati Bulane Hopa, Secretary General of the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI), described Sembène as "a luminary that lit the torch for ordinary people to walk the path of light...a voice that spoke without hesitation, a man with an impeccable talent who unwaveringly held on to his artistic principles and did that with great integrity and dignity." South Africa's Pallo Jordan, Minister of Arts and Culture, went further in eulogizing Sembène as "a well rounded intellectual and an exceptionally cultured humanist...an informed social critic [who] provided the world with an alternative knowledge of Africa."

Sembène's films include: • Year — Film — Genre — Role — Duration (min) • 1963 — Borom Sarret — Drama short Portrait of a poor Senegalese man. First film made by a black African. — Director and writer — 20 m • 1964 — Niaye — Drama short The scandal of a pregnant young girl — Director and writer — 35 m • 1966 — Black Girl (original title: La noire de...) — Drama feature A Senegalese girl becomes a servant in France — Director and writer — 65 m • 1968 — Mandabi — Drama feature A Senegalese man has to cope with a money order from Paris — Director and writer — 92 m • 1970 — Tauw — Drama short A young man makes a home for his pregnant girlfriend — Director and writer — 24 m • 1971 — Emitaï — Drama feature Jola people protest World War II French conscription — Director and writer — 103 m • 1975 — Xala — Comedy feature A corrupt politician is cursed with impotence — Director and writer — 123 m • 1977 — Ceddo — Drama feature In protest outsiders (Ceddo, non-muslims) kidnap a black princess — Director and co-writer with Carrie Sembene — 120 m • 1988 — Camp de Thiaroye — Historical drama feature In the 1944 Thiaroye massacre French troops kill rebelling returned black soldiers — Co-director and co-writer with Thierno Faty Sow — 147 m • 1992 — Guelwaar — Drama feature Religious and political satire on an erroneous burial — Director and writer — 115 m • 2000 — Faat Kiné — Drama feature An unwed mother succeeds professionally — Director and writer — 120 m • 2004 — Moolaadé — Drama feature Women protest female genital mutilation — Director and writer — 124 m

•. Video duration 1h:51m:41s. Uploader XMusicMusicX 2013. •. Video duration 1h:29m:38s. Uploader Roomnart 2022.

* * * * * * * * • Duration 31 min 20 sec. Audio file of the interview on the Leonard Lopate show. * * • Review of the film by Manthia Diawara and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

•. One of the last interviews of Sembene Ousmane. * * * • Ultimate source: International Herald Tribune. *

Ousmane Sembène is recorded with the occupation film director. Recorded as having received Officer of the Legion of Honour, Carrosse d'or and Prix Jean Vigo.