Thirty years in the past, on Might 15, 1991, the well-known Malian author Amadou Hampâté Bâ, creator of Amkoullel, the Fulani Baby, died in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The muse that bears his identify organizes on this event conferences and debates as regards to his work and his reminiscence. She additionally launched into an intensive mission to digitize convention notes, correspondence or varied writings by Amadou Hampâté Bâ.
From our correspondent in Abidjan,
Within the gardens of the Hampâté Bâ Basis, one in every of the Fulani poet’s daughters, Roukiatou Hampâté Bâ, remains to be vibrating in entrance of her father’s works, extracts of which have been put in on giant wood panels. “We will say that he was the pioneer in producing African historical past of an African, at the least in French-speaking Africa,” she stated.
He who outlined himself as an ethnologist, sociologist, “graduate with out parchment from the College of Illiteracy”, mystical theorist and even conventional narrator, was thought of above all as the primary defender of oral custom, the creator of orality.
► Additionally for listening: Amadou Hampâté Bâ: the bearer of custom
“He says that when he writes, it’s orality that lies on paper,” explains Roukiatou Hampâté Bâ. He started to report every thing he may hear reflexively. After which he realized that if he didn’t, someday it could be lacking from the pages of human historical past. So he determined to dedicate his life to fundraising. Collect to switch, for higher information of those African values ”, the daughter continues.
“He was concerned with all disciplines of human information”
Félix Houphouët Boigny’s private pal had constructed up a library of a number of hundred books, which he himself labeled in accordance with the skilled guidelines. Blaise Camara gave him a style for this technique, he’s at present the guardian of this assortment.
“It is on this library. There are all disciplines. Each in philosophy and in arithmetic, in geology, in astronomy. He was concerned with all disciplines of human information, ”remembers Blaise Camara.
Make all Amadou Hampâté Bâs publications out there
At this time, the muse has set itself the purpose of digitizing and making out there the writings of all of the masters, who held varied conferences on African cultures and peoples and transcribed numerous introductory tales from languages. Greater than 75 years of analysis on paper, on very fragile helps.
► Additionally for listening: Amadou Hampaté Bâs’ improbable destiny
“We’ve a very important heritage that just isn’t recorded wherever and it is a component of Africa’s historical past. Hampâté Bâ collected them for us: ethnographic, literary, philosophical paperwork. We’ve at present digitized roughly 3,000 paperwork, which corresponds to roughly 30,000 pages. It just isn’t the tenth of what have to be protected as a legacy, ”describes Roukiatou Hampâté Bâ.
On the anniversary of his demise, a webinar can be held on Might 15 with the participation of the best specialists in his work and emblematic figures from the world of tradition and science: the Cameroonian thinker Achille Mbembe, the Guinean creator Tierno Monénembo or Malian astrophysicist Cheick Modibo Diarra.
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