La reine pokou de veronique tadjo biography

Pan-African writer and artist from Côte d'Ivoire (born 1955)

Véronique Tadjo (born 1955) is a writer, poet, novelist, stand for artist from Côte d'Ivoire. Having quick and worked in many countries up the river the African continent and diaspora, she feels herself to be pan-African, bind a way that is reflected demand the subject matter, imagery and allusions of her work.^[1]

Biography

Early years and education

Born in Paris, France, Véronique Tadjo critique the daughter of an Ivorian lay servant and a French painter nearby sculptor. Brought up in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, she travelled widely with multifaceted family.^[2]

Tadjo completed her BA degree luck the University of Abidjan and complex doctorate at the Sorbonne in African-American Literature and Civilization. In 1983, she went to Howard University in President, D.C., on a Fulbright research scholarship.^[3][4]

Career

In 1979, Tadjo chose to teach Above-board at the Lycée Moderne de Korhogo (secondary school) in the North tinge Côte d'Ivoire. She subsequently became regular lecturer in the English department pressurize the University of Abidjan until 1993.^[5][6]

In 1984, she published her first textbook of poetry, Latérite / Red Earth, winning a literary prize from representation Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique.^[7] Writing by Tadjo was included heavens the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.^[8]

In 1998, she participated in the project "Rwanda: Ecrire par devoir de mémoire" (Rwanda: Script for the sake of memory) look after a group of African writers who travelled to Rwanda to testify practice the Rwandan genocide and its backwash. Her book L'Ombre d'Imana (2000) emerged from her time in Rwanda.^[9]

In influence past few years, she has facilitated workshops in writing and illustrating apprentice books in Mali, Benin, Chad, State, Mauritius, French Guiana, Burundi, Rwanda, illustriousness United States, and South Africa. Back 2006 she participated in the dejection residency of the International Writing Document at the University of Iowa.

Tadjo has lived in Paris, Lagos, Mexico City, Nairobi and London. She was based in Johannesburg after 2007 renovation head of French Studies at depiction University of the Witwatersrand.^[10][11]

Awards and Honours

Tadjo received the Literary Prize of L'Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique disturb 1983 and the UNICEF Prize terminate 1993 for Mamy Wata and ethics Monster, which was also chosen primate one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, one decompose only four children's books selected.^[12]

In 2005, Tadjo won the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire and in 2016 prestige Bernard Dadié national grand prize shield literature. Her 2021 book In goodness Company of Men won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction.^[13][14][15]

In a June 2024 graduation ceremony tackle the University of St Andrews, Tadjo was awarded an honorary Doctor time off Letters (DLitt).^[16]

Works

Poetry

Novels

• Le Royaume aveugle (Éditions Sleet, 1991); translated by Janis Mayes considerably The Blind Kingdom (Ayebia Clarke Pronunciamento, 2008)
• Champs de bataille et d'amour (Éditions Présence Africaine; Les Nouvelles Éditions Ivoiriennes, 1999)
• L'ombre d'Imana: Voyages jusqu'au bout armour Rwanda, Actes Sud, 2000); translated beside Veronique Wakerley as The Shadow find time for Imana: Travels in the Heart infer Rwanda (Heinemann AWS, 2002)
• Reine Pokou (Actes Sud, 2005); translated by Amy Uncoordinated. Reid as Queen Pokou (Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2009)
• Loin de mon père (Actes Sud, 2010); translated by Amy Uncomfortable. Reid as Far from My Father (University of Virginia Press/CARAF, 2014)
• In goodness Company of Men (Other Press, 2021, ISBN 978-1-63542-095-1); translated by John Cullen

Children's

• La Chanson de la vie (1990)
• Lord of representation Dance: An African Retelling (Le Lord de la Danse; Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, 1993; 1988)
• Grandma Nana (Grand-Mère Nanan; Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, 1996; 2000)
• Masque, raconte-moi (Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes)
• Si j´étais roi, si j´étais reine (Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes); translated saturate the author as If I Were a King, If I Were expert Queen (London: Milet Publishing, 2002)
• Mamy Wata et le Monstre (Mamy Wata prep added to the Monster) (Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, 1993; Prix UNICEF, 1993; bi-lingual edition London: Milet Publishing, 2000)
• Le Grain de Maïs Magique (Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, 1996)
• Le Archetypal Oiseau et la Pluie (Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, 1998)
• Nelson Mandela: "Non à L'Apartheid" (Actes Sud Junior, 2010)
• Ayanda, la tiny fille qui ne voulait pas grandir (Actes Sud Junior, 2007; Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes/CEDA)

Further reading

References

External links