Massa Makan Diabaté

Born in 1938 in Kita, Massa Makan Diabaté was the descendant of a long line of West African poets (griots).

He eventually moved to Paris, where he studied history, sociology, and political science before working for a number of international organisations such as UNICEF or UNESCO.

His early works Janjon et autres chants populaires du Mali (Janjon and other popular songs of Mali, 1970), Kala Jata (1970), and L'aigle et l'épervier ou la geste du Soundjata (The Eagle and the Sparrowhawk or the Gesture of Soundjata, 1975), were French-language versions of Malinké epics and folktales.

In L'assemblée des djinns, he elucidates his concerns through one of his characters: “The griots died before the arrival of the Whites, when our kings, instead of uniting against a common danger, tore each other to shreds.

The second force is Fadenya, the instinct to compete with and rebel against those models of past times, embodied by the father and paternal lineage… it is this desire to distinguish oneself from one's ancestors that promotes the creation of new forms of expression and the individual discovery of new aesthetics.

This dialectic of Fasiya and Fadenya is a defining characteristic of the Malian hero, the paradigm of which being the Epic of Sundiata Keita, and Diabaté features it prominently in his own novels.