Ahmadou Kourouma was born in 1927 in a village near Boundiali in northern Côte d’Ivoire. His family, part of the noble
guerrier, or warrior, caste, traces its lineage to one of the generals who fought alongside Samory Touré, founder of the 19th century West African Muslim empire that united the Malinke people and resisted European colonisation (see Borgomano 1998:7). In the 1930s and 40s when Kourouma was growing up, Samory’s Wassoulou empire had long been dismantled, and the borders drawn up by the French within the vast territory of French West Africa split the Malinke area across several different territories including Côte d’Ivoire, Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso), Mali and Guinea. At the age of seven, Kourouma was sent to live with his uncle, who sponsored…
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Citation: Batchelor, Kathryn. "Ahmadou Kourouma". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 January 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13171, accessed 22 November 2024.]
