When she was a child, Katoucha and her family were forced into exile after her father, the
author,
playwright and
historian Djibril Tamsir Niane, came into conflict with Guinean President,
Sekou Toure. Living with an uncle in
Mali, she rejoined her family in
Dakar at the age of 12. There she lived with the family of her paternal uncle, whose wife was private secretary to the President of
Senegal,
Léopold Sédar Senghor. After marrying her husband at the age of 17 and giving birth to her first child, they emigrated to
France. It was there in the 1980s that she began modeling; first for
Thierry Mugler, then for
Paco Rabanne and
Christian Lacroix, and became known as
Yves Saint Laurent's "
muse". She remained one of the best-known models in France, and an icon in Guinea. In 2005, she worked as host of the French-language television program ''
France's Next Top Model''. She was the star of the film
Ramata (2007), directed by
Léandre-Alain Baker, in which she played the title role. It tells of a Senegalese woman who, aged 50, discovers the pleasures of the flesh in the arms of a man 25 years younger.
Ramata was released in France in 2011. ==Activist==