Ousmane Sembene, the Senegalese filmmaker and writer who was a crucial
figure in Africa's postcolonial cultural awakening, has died at his home
in Dakar, Senegal. His family, which announced his death Sunday June
10th, said Sembene had been ill since December. He was 84.
He was born Jan. 1, 1923, in Ziguinchor, in the Casamance region of
southern Senegal. His father was a fisherman. He went to an Islamic
school and to the French school, learning French and basic Arabic in
addition to his mother tongue, Wolof. He left school at 14 and moved to
Dakar. There and in France, he worked as a fisherman and an auto
mechanic, among other jobs.
In 1944, Sembhne was drafted into the French Army in World War II and
later fought for the Free French forces. After the war he returned to
Senegal, and in 1947 participated in a long railroad strike on which he
later based _Les bouts de bois de dieu_ (God's Bits of Wood).
Late in 1947, he stowed away to France, where he worked at a Citroen
factory in Paris and then on the docks at Marseille, becoming active in
the French trade union movement. He joined the communist-led CGT and the
Communist party, helping lead a strike to hinder the shipment of weapons
for the French colonial war in Vietnam.
Sembhne drew on many of these experiences for his French-language first
novel, Le Docker Noir (The Black Docker, 1956). This book began Sembhne's
literary reputation and provided him with the financial support to continue writing.
But it was his third novel, Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (God's Bits of
Wood, 1960), that most critics consider his masterpiece. The novel
fictionalises the real-life story of a railroad strike on the
Dakar-Niger line that lasted from 1947 to 1948.
He also turned his guns on post-colonial corrupt African elites, social
and moral collapse in urban Senegal although a lack of English
translation of many of his novels hindered Sembhne from achieving the
same international popularity enjoyed by the Nigerians, Chinua Achebe
and Wole Soyinka.
Sembhne turned to film in 1960 in order to reach wider African audiences
after realising that his written works would only be read by a small
cultural elite in his native Senegal. He began his film-making career in
1963 with 'Borom sarret,' a short black-and-white, the first film made
in the region by a sub-Saharan African, followed a day in the life of a
Dakar cart driver.
He lived all his life for the people of Africa, for the betterment of
his country, Africa and the African person in the eyes of the world. He
was not apologetic about working on his themes on colonialism,
neo-colonialism, Marxism, cultural imperialism and others deeply rooted
in African culture.
Ousmane Sembene was among the founders, in 1969 of the Pan-African Festival
of Film and Television of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), the biennial festival of film
and television held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
He wanted Africans to have a sense of their own history and to achieve
their own sense of social, educational, economic, psychological freedom
and mobilize black thought and action to uplift the African communities.
Former Senegalese president Abdou Diouf, said Africa had lost "one of
its greatest film-makers" and "a fervent defender of liberty and social
justice."
*Adapted from a Northwestern University's text “Ousmane Sembene: Remembrance”
