Born in
Conakry,
Guinea, his secondary education was in
Senegal and his degree from the
University of Bordeaux. He was an honorary professor of
Howard University and the
University of Tokyo. He is noted for introducing the
Epic of Sundiata, about
Sundiata Keita (ca. 1217–1255), founder of the Mali Empire, to the Western world in 1960 by translating the story told to him by Djeli Mamoudou Kouyate, a griot or traditional oral historian. He also edited Volume IV —Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century— of the
UNESCO General History of Africa and participated in other UNESCO projects. He was the father of the late model
Katoucha Niane (1960–2008). Niane died in
Dakar,
Senegal on 8 March 2021, at age 89, from
COVID-19 during the
COVID-19 pandemic in Senegal. == Bibliography ==