 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|||||
|
 |
 |
Biography of Camara LayeName: Camara LayeBirth Date: January 1, 1928 Death Date: February 4, 1980 Place of Birth: Kouroussa, Africa Nationality: Guinean Gender: Male Occupations: writer Camara Laye Camara Laye (1928-1980) was a Guinean writer. His novel L'Enfant noir established him as one of the most important novelists from French-speaking Africa.Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa in Upper Guinea on January 1, 1928. According to Adele King in The Writings of Camara Laye, he was, "passionately concerned with preserving a record of traditional homeland." He let his narrative and his gently observed characters speak of the warmth, wholeness, and deep piety of pre-colonial African culture and of the growing sadness of his people as their culture changed under both the curse and the stimulus of French rule and influence.Family HistoryLaye's family belonged to the Malinké people, who retained their ancestral animist religion, despite the region's overall conversion to Islam several centuries ago. His father, Camara Komady, was a blacksmith and goldsmith and a descendent of the Camara clan, which traced its genealogy back to the thirteenth century. His …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…postcolonial world, Laye produced works that speak about the clamor and that are more poignant because of their intense dream-like style. Eventually, Laye's ill heath caught up with him and he died on February 4, 1980, in Dakar, where he is buried. Associated Works Le Regard du Roi, L'Enfant Noir Further Reading Information on the life and work of Laye is in Gerald Moore, Seven African Writers (1962); Claude Wauthier, The Literature and Thought of Modern Africa (1964; trans. 1966); Judith Illsley Gleason, This Africa: Novels by West Africans in English and French (1965); Ulli Beier, ed., Introduction to African Literature (1967); A. C. Brench, The Novelists' Inheritance in French Africa (1967); and Wilfred Cartey, Whispers from a Continent: The Literature of Contemporary Black Africa (1969); the chapter by Jeanette Macaulay in Cosmo Pieterse and Donald Munro, eds., Protest and Conflict in African Literature (1969); Adele King, The Writings of Camara Laye, Heinemann (1980); and Sonia Lee, Camara Laye, Twayne Publishers (1984). |