Camara Laye

Adele King (Ball State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

Born 1 Jan 1928
Died 4 Feb 1980
Activity 1953-1978

Places

Born in Guinea
Active in France; Guinea; Senegal

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Other

Memoirist

Resources

Camara's Works

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Camara Laye was born in Kouroussa, in Upper Guinea. (His first name is Laye, a short form of Abdoulaye, and the family name is Camara, but he always published as Camara Laye.) He wrote the first African novel in French after the Second World War, and gained international recognition.

L’Enfant Noir

[translated as

The Black Child

TheAfrican Child

] (1953) is popular in both anglophone and francophone African countries. In France it is regularly taught in elementary schools and was made into a film in 1995 by Laurent Chevallier.

L’Enfant Noir describes Laye’s life as a child in the compound of his father. The plot is organized in a pattern to show the gradual widening of the child’s world, from the time he played with a dangerous snake when he was five years old, to the day he

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1451 words

Citation: King, Adele. "Camara Laye". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 January 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13059, accessed 24 November 2024.]