Birago Diop

Son of Ismaël Diop and Sokhna (Diawara), Birago Diop was born in Ouakam, a neighborhood in Dakar, Senegal. His mother, aunt and extended family raised him with his two older brothers, Massyla (a writer) and Youssoupha; his father had disappeared, possibly dead, two months before Diop was born. Diop's brothers exposed him to folktales and literary culture. In 1920, Diop earned a scholarship to attend the French-speaking school Lycée Faidherbe in Saint-Louis, which was then Senegal's capital. During this time, he became fascinated with the poems and style of writing of Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe and several others and began writing his own. In the late 1920s, he served as a nurse in a Saint-Louis military hospital and in 1928 went on to study veterinary medicine at the University of Toulouse in France, graduating in 1933. == Career ==

Early career After graduating, Diop spent several months as an intern in Alfort working at the Institute for Exotic Veterinary Medicine. It was in the late 1930s, during his work as the head of the government's cattle-inspection service for several regions in Senegal and Mali, that Diop met a number of storytellers, including the Wolof griot Amadou Koumba. Many of his poems and tales have their roots in the oral African traditions that he encountered during his childhood and in this period of his life. During and after World War II In 1942, during World War II, Diop returned to France for two years, working again at the Institute for Exotic Veterinary Medicine, and he reconnected with the friends he had made during his previous time in France. After Diop returned to Africa in 1944, he served as a director of zoological technical services in Ivory Coast and Upper Volta (modern day Burkina Faso) between 1946 and 1950. Between 1950 and 1954, he worked in Mauritania. In 1950, he was awarded the Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique occidentale française along with Ousmane Socé Diop. Diop later acknowledged that the tales were drawn from a number of storytellers he had met, not only Amadou Koumba. In 1964, however, he returned to Dakar, opened a veterinary clinic and continued to be involved in literary activities, such as publishing in the women's magazine Awa, and adapting his story "L'Os" into a play, ''L'Os de Mor Lam. These were followed by five volumes of memoirs between 1978 and 1989: La Plume raboutée (1978), À Rebrousse-temps (1982), À Rebrousse-gens (1985), and Du temps de...(1986), and Et les yeux pour me dire'' (1989). ==Death==

Birago Diop died on 25 November 1989 in Dakar at the age of 82. ==List of works==

Narrative • Tales of Amadou Koumba (''Les Contes d'Amadou Koumba'', 1947) • New Tales of Amadou Koumba (''Les Nouveaux Contes d'Amadou Koumba'', 1958) • Tales and Commentaries (Contes et Lavanes, 1963) Poetry • Lures and Glimmers (Leurres et Lueurs, 1960). Poems written between 1925 and 1945. ==Awards and honours==

• 1950: Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique occidentale française for ''Les Contes d'Amadou Koumba'' • 1964: Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire for Contes et Lavanes • Officier de la Légion d'Honneur • Chevalier de l'Étoile Noire • Chevalier du Mérite Agricole ==See also==