Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Ousmane Sembne (born Jan. 1, 1923, Ziguinchor-Casamance, Seneg.

, French West Africa died June 9/10, 2007, Dakar, Seneg.) Senegalese writer and film director. He fought with the Free French in World War II. After the war he worked as a docker in Marseille and taught himself French. His writings, often on historical-political themes, include The Black Docker (1956), God's Bits of Wood (1960), and Niiwam; and Taaw (1987). About 1960 he became interested in film; after studying in Moscow, he made films reflecting a strong social commitment, including Black Girl (1966), which was considered the first major film produced by an African filmmaker. With Mandabi (1968), he began to film in the Wolof language; his later films include Xala (1974), Ceddo (1977), Camp de Thiaroye (1987), and Guelwaar (1993). Moolaad (2004) received the prize for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/sembene-ousmane#ixzz1jVAO5VZm Gale Encyclopedia of Biography: Sembene Ousmane Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Biographies The Senegalese writer and film maker Sembene Ousmane (born 1923) was one of Africa's great contemporary novelists. His work is characterized by a concern with ordinary decent people who are victimized by repressive governments and bureaucracies. Sembene Ousmane was born on Jan. 8, 1923, at Ziguinchor in the southern region of Casamance. Among Francophone African writers, he is unique because of his working-class background and limited primary school education. Originally a fisherman in Casamance, he worked in Dakar as a plumber, bricklayer, and mechanic. In 1939 he was drafted into the colonial army and fought with the French in Italy and Germany. Upon demobilization, he first resumed life as a fisherman in Senegal but soon went back to France, where he worked on the piers of Marseilles and became the union leader of the longshoremen. His first novel, Le Docker noir (1956; The Black Docker), is about his experiences during this period. Well before independence in 1960, Ousmane returned to Senegal, where he became an astute observer of the political scene and wrote a number of volumes on the developing national consciousness. In Oh pays, mon beau peuple!, he depicts the plight of a developing country under colonialism. God's Bit of Wood, his only novel translated into English, recounts the developing sense of self and group consciousness of railway workers in French West Africa during a strike. L'Harmattan focuses upon the difficulty of creating a popular government and the corruption of unresponsive politicians who postpone the arrival of independence (1964). Ousmane's international reputation was secured by his films based on his stories and directed by himself. He had turned to film to reach that 90 percent of the population of his country that could

not read. Borom Sarat is remarkable for the cleavages Ousmane reveals in contemporary African society between the masses of the poor and the new African governing class who have stepped into the positions of dominance left by the French. La Noire de - is about the tragedy of a Senegalese woman who is lured from her homeland by the promise of wealth and becomes lost in a morass of loneliness and inconsideration. Ousmane's prizewinning work Le Mandat (The Money Order) shows what happens to an unemployed illiterate when he is apparently blessed by a large money order; he is crushed by an oppressive bureaucracy and unsympathetic officials. Sembene Ousmane lived a simple existence in Senegal in a beach-front cottage that he built himself. Further Reading The only work by Ousmane thus far translated into English is God's Bit of Wood (1960; trans. 1962). A full-length study of Ousmane is not available. The most significant critical assessments are written in French. Claude Wauthier's essentially descriptive summary of a host of black writers, including Ousmane, appeared in English as The Literature and Thought of Modern Africa (1964; trans. 1966). A chapter on Ousmane is in A.C. Brench, The Novelists' Inheritance in French Africa: Writers from Senegal to Cameroon (1967). For general background see Judith Illsley Gleason, This Africa: Novels by West Africans in English and French (1965). Gale Contemporary Black Biography: Ousmane Sembne Top Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > Black Biographies filmmaker; writer Personal Information Born Ousmane Sembne, January 1, 1923, in Ziguinchor, Senegal; son of a fisherman; married Carrie Moore, 1974; one other marriage; children: Alain and Moussa, both sons. Education: Attended Gorki Film Studios, Moscow, 1962; Politics: Leftist. Career Worked as a laborer in a variety of occupations, including fisherman, plumber, mechanic, and bricklayer, 1938-42; served in the Free French Forces, 1942-46; dockworker, 1948-60; novelist, 1956--; filmmaker, 1963--; Kaadu newspaper, founding editor, 1972. Life's Work

Ousmane Sembne has frequently been referred to as "the father of African cinema." Yet even such a grandiose title fails to capture the full impact of Sembne's accomplishments as an author, filmmaker, and social critic. Taken together, his work represents an ongoing literary battle against corruption, colonialism, and hypocrisy in all its forms. Despite the international attention his films and novels have received, Sembne has chosen to ignore the lure of commercial moviemaking, preferring instead to remain in his homeland of Senegal, where he is revered as a champion of working people and other victims of exploitation. Sembne was born into a family of fishermen on January 1, 1923, in the village of Ziguinchor, Senegal. His parents divorced when he was a child, and the young Sembne was sent to live for varying periods of time with different relatives. Of all the family members he spent time with, the most influential was his mother's oldest brother, Abdou Rahmane Diop. Diop, a teacher, intellectual, and devout Muslim, instilled in Sembne a sense of pride in his African heritage. At the age of eight, Sembne was sent to Islamic school. When Diop died in 1935, however, Sembne moved to Dakar to live with another uncle. In Dakar, he began attending French schools. His formal education ended at the age of 14, when he quit school after a physical fight with a teacher. During the next few years, Sembne worked at a series of odd jobs to support himself, including stints as a mechanic, a carpenter, and a mason. It was during this period that he became mesmerized by the cinema, where he and his friends would spend as much of their free time as possible. He also absorbed a great deal of Senegalese culture in the form of traditional storytellers (griots) and musicians. In 1938 Sembne had what he has described as a mystical experience, resulting in a renewed commitment to Islam. Although this religious fervor was short-lived, it sparked in Sembne a sense of justice and commitment that he carried into his subsequent secular life. When he was 19, Sembne joined the French colonial forces in their battle against Nazi Germany. After four years in the military, during which he fought in both Europe and Africa, Sembne returned to Dakar, where he helped organize the Dakar-Niger railroad strike of 1947 and 1948. His experience in the railroad strike provided the material for his 1960 epic novel God's Bits of Wood, widely considered to be his literary masterpiece. When the strike was over, and with job opportunities in Senegal scarce, Sembne made his way to France as a stowaway on a ship. Arriving in Paris, he worked at a series of factory jobs. He then moved to Marseilles, where he became a longshoreman; he also resumed his activities as a labor organizer and became affiliated with the French communist party. By the early 1950s, Sembne had begun writing on a regular basis, mostly as an outlet for his political and philosophical thoughts. His poetry and short fiction began appearing in such magazines as Presence Africaine and Action poetique. In 1956 Sembne's first novel, Le Docker noir (The Black Docker), was published. Le Docker noir incorporated Sembne's experiences as a Senegalese dockworker laboring in Marseilles. Although the novel did not gain widespread attention, it set the tone for much of his later writing in dealing with the difficulties of an African trying to adapt to Western life. Sembne's second novel, O Pays, mon beau peuple! (Oh My Country, My Beautiful People!), was published the following year.

Meanwhile, Sembne traveled the world to connect with writers from different regions. In 1956 he attended the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. Two years later, Sembne went to the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan to attend the First Congress of African and Asiatic Writers, where he met and was strongly influenced by writer and social critic W. E. B. DuBois. He also met with other writers and artists in China and North Vietnam during the last part of the 1950s. Sembne's biggest career breakthrough came with the 1960 publication of Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (God's Bits of Wood). The novel received international acclaim, and after its publication Sembne was finally able to devote himself to writing full-time. It also made him a visible figure among France's leftist and intellectual communities, both black and white. Sembne's filmmaking career began in the early 1960s. Traveling in West Africa, he became increasingly aware of the difficulties of reaching out to a population that was largely illiterate. In 1962 he went to Moscow for a crash course in filmmaking technique. Upon his return to Africa, Sembne was commissioned by the government of Mali to make a short documentary, L'Empire Sonhria, which was completed in 1963. He then formed his own production company and made his first important film, Borom Sarret, which won the First Film Award at the 1963 Tours Film Festival in France. His next film, Niaye, won an award at Tours, as well as an Honorable Mention at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. All of these films were shot on a shoestring budget using nonprofessional actors. In 1966 Sembne cemented his international reputation as a gifted filmmaker with his first feature-length film, La Noire de... (Black Girl). The film, about a Senegalese nanny who accompanies her white employers back to France, won a number of awards, and was the first film by a black African to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. It is generally considered a milestone in the history of African cinema. Over the next two decades, Sembne worked steadily in both literature and film, often adapting his fiction for the screen. Le Mandat (The Money Order) published in 1965, became Sembne's second feature film, Mandabi, in 1968. Another example was his 1973 novel Xala, which was filmed a year after its print publication. Those two works reveal the lighter side of Sembne. Unlike the socio- realism (picked up in Russia) of some of his earlier writing, they are farcical, poking fun at the bourgeoisie and their bureaucratic allies. The Senegalese government was not always pleased with the point of view expressed in Sembne's work; while the films were being applauded all over the world, they were often being heavily censored at home. Xala was Sembne's only novel of the 1970s, but he made a few other important films. Emitai (1971), involves the attempt by French troops to draft the young men of a Senegal village into service during World War II. Ceddo (1977), describes the forced conversion of an African village to Islam. It was banned by the Senegalese government in order to avoid offending the country's 80 percent Muslim majority. Sembne also kept busy during the decade helping establish Kaddu, a magazine in his native Wolof language. Sembne's only film of the 1980s was Camp de Thiaroye (1987), which deals with the problems faced by Senegalese veterans of World War II upon their return to Africa. His literary work of

the decade includes a novel, Le Dernier de l'Empire (The Last Days of the Empire, 1980), and two novellas. In 1992 Sembne reemerged on the scene, to the delight of the international film community, with Guelwaar, which incorporates many of the themes of his earlier work, such as religious tensions, government corruption, the evils of colonialism. Guelwaar was received with world-wide enthusiasm, and its release was accompanied by African film festivals and Sembne retrospectives in many cities. Throughout his career, Ousmane Sembne taken the idea of the "independent" filmmaker to its extreme. He has never relinquished control of any part of the process. He prefers to work with nonprofessional actors, and the amount of money he typically spends on a film would barely pay the catering bill for a Hollywood production. Because Sembne has remained fiercely loyal to the principles that got him started as a writer, he has not had to worry about such mundane matters as funding, censorship, or box office receipts. Sembne is not only the "father of African cinema," but, as was once noted in Film Comment, perhaps the "only filmmaker left in the world who cannot be bought and sold." Awards First Film Award, Tours (France) Film Festival, 1963; Dakar Festival of Negro Arts prize, 1966; Cannes Film Festival prize, 1967; International Critics' prize, Venice Bienale, 1968; Venice Film Festival prize, 1969; Atlanta Film Festival prize, 1970; Silver Medal, Moscow Film Festival, 1971; Paul Robeson Prize, 1978; Nahouri Bronze Medal from the government of Burkina Faso, 1987; Grand Prix, Venice Film Festival, 1988. Works Writings
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Fiction Le docker noir, Debresse, 1956 (published in English as The Black Docker, Heinemann, 1987.) O pays, mon beau peuple, Le Livre Contemporain, 1957. Les bouts de bois de Dieu, Le Livre Contemporain, 1960 (published in English as God's Bits of Wood, Anchor Books, 1970.) Voltaique, Presence Africaine, 1962. L'Harmattan, Presence Africaine, 1964. Le mandat, Presence Africaine, 1966 (published in English as The Money Order, Heinemann, 1972.) Xala, Presence Africaine, 1973 (published in English as Xala, L. Hill and Co., 1976.) Le dernier de l'Empire, L'Harmattan, 1981 (published in English as The Last Days of the Empire, Heinemann, 1983.) Niiwam, Presence Africaine, 1987 (published in English as Niiwam and Taaw: Two Novellas, Heinemann, 1992. Film L'Empire Sonhrai, 1963. Borom Sarret, 1963.

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Niaye, 1964. La Noire de... 1966. Mandabi, 1968. Taaw, 1970. Emitai, 1971. Xala, 1974. Ceddo, 1976. Camp de Thiaroye, 1989. Guelwaar, 1992.

Further Reading Books

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Gadjigo, Samba, Ralph Faulkingham, Thomas Cassirer, and Sander Reinhard, editors, Ousmane Sembne: Dialogues with Critics and Writers, University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.

Periodicals
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Film Comment, July/August, 1993, pp. 63-69. Houston Chronicle, February 18, 1996, p. 11. Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1995, p. 30. New York Times, December 28, 1972. UNESCO Courier, January 1990, pp. 4-7.

Robert R. Jacobson Oxford Companion to French Literature: Sembne Ousmane Top Home > Library > Literature & Language > French Literature Companion Sembne Ousmane (b. 1923) is famous as the pioneer of African cinema, but his contribution to literature is equally outstanding. His early novels, Le Docker noir (1956) and pays mon beau peuple (1957), form part of the wave of anti-colonial literature of the 1950s, but it is with Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (1960) that he emerges as a major artist and thinker, a position which has been consolidated by his subsequent work. Born in Senegal, Sembne's background distinguishes him from other writers of his generation, especially his famous compatriot Senghor. Expelled from school at 14, Sembne worked as a builder before joining the army. World War II, he claims, was a major factor in his ideological education. During the 1950s he worked in France as a mechanic and later a docker, furthering his formal education in evening classes. He joined the Communist Party and was active in the trade-

union

movement,

before

returning

to

Africa

in

1958.

Les Bouts de bois de Dieu is a fictional recreation of the 1947 railway workers' strike in the French Sudan. A beautifully constructed and deeply moving work, it belies the theory that aesthetic quality and ideological commitment are incompatible. One aspect of its originality lies in its introduction into the African novel of a collective, popular protagonistthe developing African proletariatand of the idea of organized resistance. The novel reflects Sembne's belief that Africa will be liberated, not by the lite, but by the struggle of the working class. Women play a prominant role in the novel: for Sembne, sexual equality will be achieved through women's involvement in the class struggle rather than by separate feminist movements. In Les Bouts de bois de Dieu Marxism equips Sembne to go beyond the false dichotomy of tradition and modernism in which many African intellectuals tend to flounder. His ideal, une Afrique indpendante et rnove, involves a rejection of the Western capitalist development model, which perpetuates dependency, and also of the oppressive feudal, patriarchal, and gerontocratic residues of traditional society. The way forward embraces science and technology along with all aspects of popular traditional culture compatible with scientific socialism, such as self-reliance and the community spirit. In 1963, after a short course on cinema in Moscow, Sembne made his first film. His involvement in cinema sprang from his concept of art as a means of raising the consciousness of the masses and his awareness of the limitations of literature in French for reaching an African public who do not know the language and cannot read. Sembne also participated in promoting literacy in the national languages, through the Wolof newspaper, Kaddu. Unlike those writers who had illusions about Independence and consequently refrained from comment throughout the early 1960s, Sembne's critique of African leadership and their collusion with Western capitalism has been continuous. His only collection of short stories, Voltaques (1962), was followed by L'Harmattan (1964), an incisive fictional recreation of the politics of the 1958 Referendum when, under Senghor, Senegal voted against a radical break with France. Two novellas, Le Mandat and Vhi-Ciosane, published in a single volume, won for Sembne his only literary prize, awarded by the 1966 Festival des Arts Ngres in Dakar. Le Mandat became a famous film, as did Sembne's next novel, Xala (1973), in which he reveals the link between cultural alienation and economic impotence. Le Dernier de l'empire, a roman clefs which appeared in 1981, within months of Senghor's resignation as president of Senegal, is a hard-hitting review of Senegalese political history since Independence, and a critical meditation on democracy. Two more novellas, Niiwam and Taaw, drafted much earlier, appeared in a single volume in 1987. Sembne has the great artist's ability to distill the essential structures and mechanisms of society into powerful, memorable images which become symbols of the times: the money-order, the (literally) impotent business man, the peasant forced by penury to convey his dead child's corpse to the cemetery in the bus. Consistently Afrocentric, his work in its entirety is an implicit condemnation of Senghor's ngritude and the latter's promotion of la francophonie and other aspects of French cultural hegemony. In Sembne's later work, he appears less optimistic about

the revolutionary role of the proletariat, and seems to lean towards the military as the only viable symbol of African resistance and rehabilitation. [Firinne Ni Chrachin] Bibliography
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P. Vieyra, Sembne Ousmane cinaste (1972) F. Pfaff, The Cinema of Ousmane Sembne, a Pioneer of African Film (1984)

Columbia Encyclopedia: Ousmane Sembene Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia - People Sembene, Ousmane ( sm'n s mb 'n ), 1923-2007, Senegalese author and film director who wrote and made films in French and Wolof, often regarded as the father of sub-Saharan African cinema. He left school at 15 and after being drafted into the French Army in 1939, joined the Free French forces in 1942, accompanying them to liberated France in 1944. After World War II, Sembene became a dockworker in Marseilles, joined the Communist party, and drew on his experiences for his first novel, Le Docker noir (1956; tr. The Black Docker, 1981). He became disabled, and turned to literature as his primary occupation. His books from this period include Les Bouts de bois de dieu (1960; tr. God's Bits of Wood, 1962), which chronicles a Senegalese railroad strike of the late 1940s. In the early 1960s, he studied film at the Gorki Studios in Moscow. Returning to Senegal in 1963, Sembene wished to reach a larger and more diverse audience and to develop a truly African style. He soon turned to filmmaking, producing a number of feature and short films that ranged from satirical comedies to serious dramas and documentaries. In general, his films explore the lives of ordinary Africans, treat women's stories and issues with particular sensitivity, and view such larger themes as colonialism, racism, and social class from a populist and leftist point of view. In 1966 he directed La Noire de [black girl], which uses a combination of realistic Western narrative and traditional African storytelling to follow a young African woman's mistreatment by a French family. A landmark in film history, it was the first feature ever produced by an African filmmaker and won a prize at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival. Beginning with Mandabi [the money order] (1968), Sembene produced films in the Wolof language, taking his work to cities and villages throughout Senegal. Angry and often bitingly satirical views of modern African regimes, his subsequent films, including Xala (1974) and Ceddo [outsiders] (1977), were temporarily banned or censored in Senegal because parts of them were deemed offensive to government standards. His later films include Guelwaar (1992), a groundbreaking satire on Muslim-Christian conflicts in a small village; Samori (1994); and his

final films, Faat-Kin (2000) and Moolaad (2004), both of which again reflect Sembene's profound concern for African women. Bibliography See F. Pfaff, The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene (1984); R. Faulkingham et al., ed., Ousmane Sembene: Dialogues with Critics and Writers (1994); S. Petty, ed., A Call to Action: The Films of Ousmane Sembene (1996); D. Murphy, Sembene: Imagining Alternatives in Film and Fiction (2001).

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/sembene-ousmane#ixzz1jVAWYi9U

Ousmane Sembene

As far as I am concerned, I no longer support notions of purity. Purity has become a thing of the past. . . I constantly question myself. I am neither looking for a school nor for a solution but asking questions and making others think. (qtd. in Niang 176) Biography

Born on 1 January 1923 in Ziguinchor, Senegal, Ousmane Sembene is assuredly one of the most
prominent figures in African film and literature. Yet little in his early experience seemed to predispose him to a career not only as a major literary figure but also as a literary figure, tout court. Primarily self-taught, Sembene has been exposed to various experiences and situations that have very often turned out to reverberate in his work. As early as the age of 15, he started earning his living as a fisherman. Beside working as a fisherman, Sembene has also served as a bricklayer, a plumber, an apprentice mechanic, a dock worker and a trade unionist -- jobs which many people may view as incongruent with, or even unlikely to be conducive to, the stimulation

of literary talents. But it is this very experience which, paradoxically or not, greatly contributed in shaping Sembene as the great writer and filmmaker he has become. In this respect, Ousmane maintains that his education was a result of a training he received in "the University of Life" (qtd. in Amuta 137). After World War II broke out, Sembene was drafted into the French army. He returned to Senegal after the war, but went back to France to work in the docks of Marseilles where he became a trade union activist and joined the French Communist Party until the independence of Senegal in 1960.

Sembene's Literary and Filmic Aesthetics

In order to do justice to Sembene's work, one has to put it in a context where art serves as a
creative medium that is primarily imbued with a functional aesthetics. As he spans over the experience of his people and evaluates its sociocultural values, Sembene uses an aesthetics that is largely explainable through consideration of the cultural setting to which his work refers. Thus, being very much concerned about the uplifting of the living condition of the exploited classes, Sembene sees to it that his language remained accessible to them. Stylistically, Sembene's incredible gift as a storyteller is often translated into his work by smooth and easy shifts between the use of standard French and local colloquialisms. It is perhaps this concern for having his work accessible to those who constitute the primary subjects of his artistic endeavors that motivates his deep interest in the visual and the performative. As an artist interested in carrying his message through to the socially underprivileged masses, a choice can hardly be more felicitous than this, given the high illiteracy rate in a country like Senegal.

The Writer as Social Critic

Sembene's novelistic debut, Le docker noir, largely mirrors his own personal experience as a docker in Marseilles. Since the publication of his first novel, he wrote numerous other books and films which in one way or another reflect his committed position as a writer or a filmmaker. In these works his main preoccupation is to critically assume his social responsibility as a critic who refuses to stand by as a passive observer while social injustice in post-colonial Africa takes on increasingly alarming proportions everyday. The nexus of Sembene's literary and filmic work is generally a critique of the conflictual relationships between the colonizer and the colonized, the state and the people, men and women, the rich and the poor, and the elders and the youth. In sum, his concerns are directed to universal issues involving tensions that are created by power relations. Sembene's depiction of the pervasive tensions between the different existential poles that he examines is generally carried out from a perspective which ultimately reveals a viewpoint that is both favorable to the victims and expressive of a counter-hegemonic voice. In this respect, Sembene's work constitutes a revolutionary crusade aimed at exposing a certain system that maintains exploitation -- whether such a system is inherited from African traditions or acquired

as a legacy of the colonial encounter between Africa and Europe. Such a crusade may be viewed in terms of the writer's commitment to stand as a genuine griot for his people. As Sembene himself argues, the artist should serve as a spokesperson for his/her people, expressing the latter's aspirations and fears, and serving as a reflective mirror for their experience: "The artist must in many ways be the mouth and the ears of his people. In the modern sense, this corresponds to the role of the griot in traditional African culture. The artist is like a mirror. His work reflects and synthesizes the problems, the struggles, and hopes of his people" (qtd. in Pfaff 29). Naturally, Sembene's artistic engagement is first and foremost a political engagement through which the artist can hardly address social reality in ways other than political. Such a role as assigned to the artist brings to mind Frederic Jameson's argument that the intellectual in the Third-World is one that is "always in one way or another a political intellectual" whose agenda is dictated by the experience of his/her people (74). In Sembene's books as well as in his films, political engagement is often launched from a materialist perspective. Already in one of his early novels, God's Bits of Wood -- inspired by the historic strike observed by the workers on the DakarNiger railway -- Ousmane Sembene announces one of the focal trajectories (the interplay between political, social, and economic factors) that will later run through his entire work. In this regard, and referring to God's Bits of Wood, Chidi Amuta rightly maintains that Ousmane puts "a heavy accent on economic exploitation and physical violence in the novel. But he predicates this perception on an ideological perspective that firmly recognizes cultural and institutional practices as contingent on economic realities" (138). One may arguably contend that in its early stage the bulk of Sembene's critique was directed against colonial abuse of power and the concomitant "effects of the colonial experience on the cultural values and institutional structures of his referent society" (Amuta 138). His later critical reflection, however, generally tends to denounce the perpetration of injustice and the maintenance of an exploitative status quo by privileged classes at home. Many observers believe that the vast majority of African post-colonial states have failed to meet many -- if not most -- of the expectations that their people initially associated with independence from European colonial rule. And relatedly, for many African people the formal end of colonial rule did not produce an end to social injustice and drastic economic imbalance. In this context, one may easily understand why Ousmane's work continues to be dominated by a desire to spell out what he thinks has been going wrong with his society. Thus, he yields to a critical examination of post-colonial African societies without seeking neither to embellish nor to discredit them, but to simply depict a reality in which the intervention of the critic comes as an attempt to objectively consider issues that are of critical importance to contemporary African societies. In an interview with Franoise Pfaff, Sembene made his position clear when he argued that "I have never tried to please my audience through the embellishment of reality. I am a participant and an observer of my society" (40). Indeed, as "a participant and an observer" of his society, Sembene strives (as he recommends young African filmmakers to do the same) to "give voice to . . . [the] inner screams" of his people (Niang & Gadjigo 177). Yet even if he maintains that he is "neither looking for a school

nor for a solution," his work elicits a tremendous complex of issues that he does not just address. Indeed, the ways in which Ousmane Sembene examines the political and socio-economic spectrum that is under scrutiny in his work reveal, if nothing else, that at least awareness of social injustice can be gained through reading his books or watching his films. If ultimately this unasserted goal is achieved, then Sembene's work will have undoubtedly managed to create a highly needed revolution in the beliefs and behaviors of his primarily targeted audience. If that happens, he will have managed to contribute to the conscientious creation in his readers of a consciousness that strives for the establishment of more equity and justice, despite his resistance to appear prescriptive (Kass and Ridehalgh 191, my translation).

Works by Sembene Primary Works Le docker noir. Paris: Nouvelles ditions Debresse, 1956. Published in English as The Black Docker. O Pays, mon beau peuple! Paris: Le Livre Contemporain, 1957. Les bouts de bois de dieu. Paris: Le Livre Contemporain, 1960. Published in English as God's Bits of Wood. Voltaoque. Paris: Prsence Africaine, 1962. Published in English as Tribal Scars and Other Stories. L'Harmattan. Paris: Presnce Africaine, 1964. Vhi-Ciosane ou Blanche Genese, suivi du Mandat. Paris: Prsence Africaine, 1965. Published in English as The Money Order and White Genesis. Xala. Paris: Prsence Africaine, 1974. Published in English as Xala. Le dernier de l'empire (two volumes). Paris: L'Harmattan, 1981. Published in English as The Last of the Empire. Niiwam suivi de Taaw. Paris: Prsence Africaine, 1987. Published in English as Niiwam and Taaw. Filmography [Although Ousmane Sembene has written and directed an impressively great number of films, this filmography is limited to a list of what may be considered to be some of his major films. What follows is therefore not an exhaustive list of his films.]

Borom Sarret (1963). No official English title. La noire de... (1966). [Black Girl. In French with English subtitles] Mandabi (1968). [The Money Order. In Wolof and in French. There is also a Wolof version with English subtitles] Taaw (1970). [In Wolof with English subtitles] Emitai (1971). [God of Thunder. In Diola and French with English subtitles.] Xala (1974). [In Wolof and French with English subtitles] Ceddo (1976). [In Wolof with English subtitles] Camp de Thiaroye (1988). [In Wolof and French with English subtitles] Guelwaar (1992). [Guelwaar: An African Legend for the 21st Century. In Wolof and French with English subtitles]
Photo: From Xala

Works Cited Amuta, Chidi. The Theory of African Literature: Implications for a Practical Criticism. London: Zed Books LTD, 1989. Jameson, Frederic. "Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism." Social Text 15 (1986): 65-88. Kass Magueye & Anna Ridehalgh. "Histoire et traditions dans la cration artisitique: entretien avec Ousmane Sembne." French Cultural Studies. Vol. 6 (Part 2), no. 17 (June 1995): 179-196. Niang, Sada & Samba Gadjigo. "Interview with Ousmane Sembene." Research in African Literatures 26:3 (Fall 1995): 174-178. Pfaff, Franoise. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene: A Pioneer of African Film. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984.