Ousmane Sembène

Ousmane Sembène (1 January 1923 – 9 June 2007) was a Senegalese writer and film director, born at Ziguinchor in the Casamance region of what was then French West Africa. ^{1 2}

He came to literature from the docks: a fisherman's son who became a labourer, a soldier, a Marseille docker and a trade-union militant, he taught himself French letters, published a first novel in 1956, and then turned to film-making so that his stories could reach the majority of Africans who did not read French. ^{1 2}

His La Noire de... (Black Girl, 1966) is regarded as the first feature film by a sub-Saharan African director, and the Los Angeles Times called him "the father of African film" and one of Africa's greatest authors. ¹

Sembène was born at Ziguinchor, in Casamance, the son of a fisherman; the English article places his father's family among the Lebou and traces his descent, through his mother, from a Serer family in the line of Matar Sène. ¹

He was particularly drawn to the Serer religious festivals of his mother's people, above all the Tuur festival, in which as a child he was made a "cult servant" — a role the article says he did not take seriously, drinking the curdled-milk offerings made to the ancestral spirits. ¹

Raised largely by his maternal grandmother, he attended a madrasa, "as was common for many Muslim boys", and a French school, until 1936, when he clashed with the principal and left. ¹

He worked with his father — though prone to seasickness — until 1938, then moved to Dakar at fifteen and took manual jobs; Britannica adds a period of study at the School of Ceramics at Marsassoum and work as a bricklayer, plumber and apprentice mechanic. ^{1 2}

In 1944 Sembène was drafted into the Senegalese Tirailleurs and later served with the Free French Forces; Britannica dates his conscription to 1939 and his joining of the Free French to 1942. ^{1 2}

Back in Senegal he took part in the 1947 railroad strike — the experience behind his greatest novel — and late in 1947 he stowed away to France, working first at a Citroën factory in Paris and then on the docks of Marseille. ¹

In Marseille he joined the communist-led CGT union and the Communist Party, and helped lead a strike that blocked arms shipments for France's war in Indochina. ¹

There he discovered the Harlem Renaissance writer Claude McKay and the Haitian Marxist writer Jacques Roumain, and educated himself in French; when a spinal injury ended his dock work, literature became his livelihood. ^{1 2}

His first novel, Le Docker noir (The Black Docker, 1956), drew on his Marseille years; it was followed by O Pays, mon beau peuple! (1957) and Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (God's Bits of Wood, 1960), his fictionalised account of the Dakar–Niger railroad strike of 1947–48, told through an ensemble of some fifty characters around the union spokesman Ibrahima Bakayoko. ¹

His later fiction includes the stories of Voltaïque (Tribal Scars, 1962), L'Harmattan (1964), Vehi-Ciosane and Le Mandat (The Money-Order, 1965), Xala (1973), Le Dernier de l'empire (1981) and Niiwam et Taaw (1987). ¹

Realising that his written French reached only a small minority — Britannica puts the share of Africans who did not know French at about eighty per cent — Sembène turned to film as what he called the people's "night school", and in 1962–63 studied film-making at the Gorky Film Studio in Moscow under Mark Donskoy. ^{1 2}

His short Borom Sarret (1963) was followed by Niaye (1964) and then by La Noire de... (Black Girl, 1966), the first feature film by a sub-Saharan African director, which won the Prix Jean Vigo. ¹

With Mandabi (1968), adapted from his novella Le Mandat, he realised his ambition of a film in the Wolof language — a decision Britannica calls revolutionary. ^{1 2}

Emitaï (1971) won a silver prize at the Moscow festival and was banned across French West Africa; Xala followed in 1975, and Ceddo in 1977 — a panoramic film in Wolof about African religions and their encounters, as Britannica describes it — was heavily censored on its Senegal release, ostensibly over paperwork, though some critics suggested the government read it as anti-Muslim; Sembène distributed fliers describing the censored scenes and released the film uncut abroad. ^{1 2}

His later films include Camp de Thiaroye (1988), on the 1944 killing of West African veterans by French troops; Guelwaar (1992), which Britannica describes as a commentary on the fractious religious life of Senegal, built on the morgue mix-up of a Muslim's and a Catholic's bodies; Faat Kiné (2000); and Moolaadé (2004), on female genital cutting, which won awards at Cannes and at FESPACO. ^{1 2}

The English article lists his recurrent themes as the history of colonialism, the failings of religion, the corrupt new African bourgeoisie and the strength of African women. ¹

The Arabic article's awards list records the Prix Jean Vigo and the Tanit d'or for Black Girl in 1966, the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire in 1997, the Carrosse d'Or in 2005 and the Legion of Honour (officer) in 2006; the English article lists him among the recipients of the British Film Institute's Fellowship in 2005. ^{3 1}

This section reports what the sources record of Sembène's religious position, without a verdict from the museum.

His childhood, as the English article tells it, crossed two religious worlds: the Serer festivals of his mother's people, in which he took a childhood part he did not take seriously, and the madrasa schooling common for Muslim boys of his place and time. ¹

His adult commitments, as the sources present them, were political: membership of the Communist Party in Marseille and of its union federation, and a body of work shaped by Marxist writers, in which organised religion appears among the recurring targets — "the failings of religion" is one of the themes the English article lists, and his film Ceddo was censored in Senegal amid readings of it as anti-Muslim. ¹

Other sources point the other way: Guelwaar treats Senegal's Muslim–Catholic frictions with knowledge of both communities, and when Sembène died he was buried in a shroud adorned with Qur'anic verses, in the Yoff cemetery recorded by the Arabic article. ^{2 1 3}

No source consulted names a religious school for him, or states his personal religion in so many words; the museum therefore records his faith as unknown, and reports each of these positions attributed, as above. ^{1 4}

Sembène died on 9 June 2007 at his home in Dakar, aged eighty-four, having been ill since December 2006; Britannica gives the date as June 9/10. He was survived by three sons from two marriages. ^{1 2}

• English Wikipedia article "Ousmane Sembène" (revision 1371381496); Arabic Wikipedia article «عثمان سيمبين» (revision 75250723); Urdu Wikipedia article «عثمان سیمبین» (revision 11720467); Wikidata item Q314966; Encyclopaedia Britannica entry "Ousmane Sembène".
• The sources conflict on details: his birth day (1 January in the English and Urdu articles, Wikidata and Britannica; 8 January in the English lead's alternative and the Arabic text), his conscription (1944 in the English article; 1939 in Britannica), his death day (9 June; "9/10 June" in Britannica) and several film years (Xala film 1975/1974, Camp de Thiaroye 1988/1987, Guelwaar 1992/1993, English article against Britannica). Each is recorded here and in the data record rather than silently resolved.