Boubacar Boris Diop is a prolific Senegalese writer whose books include, inter alia : Le temps de Tamango (Harmattan 1981; Serpent à Plumes, 2002), Les traces de la meute (Harmattan, 1993) ; Doomi Golo (Papyrus 2003) and Kaveena (Philippe Rey, 2006). Les tambours de la mémoire (Nathan, 1987; Harmattan, 1990) was awarded the Grand Prix des Lettres du Sénégal, and Le Cavalier et son ombre (Stock, 1997) received the Prix Tropiques. Murambi, le livre des ossements (Stock, 2000; as The Book of Bones, Indiana University Press, 2006) was selected as one of the 100 best African novels of the twentieth century, a list established by the Zimbabwe International Book Fair. Distinguished choreographer Germaine Acogny and her Japanese colleague Kota Yamasaki produced an acclaimed dance performance adaptation of this novel entitled Fagaala.
Former editor-in-chief of the independent Senegalese daily, Le Matin, Diop is also a freelance columnist who has been writing regularly for the past fifteen years for prominent international newspapers such as Le Monde diplomatique, Courrier international, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (based in Zurich) and Internazionale, and an Italian weekly.
Diop co-authored Négrophobie (Les Arènes, 2005) with Odile Tobner and the late François-Xavier Verschave, founder of the Human rights association “Survie”. He also published a collection of essays entitled, L’Afrique au-delà du miroir (Philippe Rey, 2007). Diop also contributed a piece to L’Afrique répond à Sarkozy (Philippe Rey, 2008), which served as a challenging response to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's speech on African policy.
In November 2006, Diop was an invited special guest of Toni Morrison, as part of the event "Toni Morrison at the Louvre," which she titled, L'étranger chez soi (The Stranger's Home). As guest curator, Morrison organized a public reading and conversation with a panel of international writers. Among the other invitees were Michael Ondaatje and Edwidge Danticat. Diop read from his novel in Wolof, Doomi Golo, excerpts which he translated into French for this special occasion. Diop’s French translation of his Doomi Golo, was published in September 2009 as Les petits de la guenon (Editions Philippe Rey, Paris).
TriQuarterly Online interviewed Diop in spring 2011. Read the interview here.
