| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
|
|
Society for the Study of Sembène Ousmane, which has, every year since its inception, organized a panel on Sembène’s works that is presented at the annual meeting of the African Literature Association.24
For the preparation of this volume, I conducted extensive archival research on Sembène’s works and audience reactions to them in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, the United States, and France (Paris, Marseilles, Angers, and Bordeaux). My articles about his films have appeared in Literature and Film Quarterly, West Africa Review, Equinoxes, and African Affairs. Perhaps of most importance for the preparation of this volume, I conducted key interviews with twenty different individuals who worked closely with Sembène, including his longtime assistant, Clarence Delgado; several of his film technicians; actors; actresses; journalists; university professors; professional associates; old friends; and his biographer, Samba Gadjigo. To place Sembène in the context and history of African cinema more generally, I also interviewed other African directors from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Senegal.
This volume is composed of seven chapters, including this first chapter that is the introduction. Chapter 2 examines the sociopolitical context in which Sembène grew up, highlighting aspects of his formative years and the major events that influenced his life and inspired his artistic works. Chapter 3 discusses the African oral tradition, especially the role of the traditional storyteller, and its influence on Sembène. Chapter 4 examines the psychological impact of language on the colonized subject and then investigates how, through his cinema, Sembène promotes African languages. Chapter 5 focuses on Sembène’s cinematic portrayal of the tense coexistence within Senegal of Islam and Christianity and his appeal to Senegalese people for greater religious tolerance. Chapter 6 examines what Sembène considered hurdles to the liberation of African women. It also discusses how women from different socioeconomic classes are depicted. Chapter 7 examines Sembène’s understanding of global political and economic forces and how they play out on the lived experiences