Williams Sassine
Encyclopedia
Williams Sassine was a Guinea
n novelist who wrote in French
. His father was Lebanese
Christian
and his mother was a Guinean of Muslim
heritage.
Sassine was an expatriate African writer in France
after leaving Guinea when it received independence under Sékou Touré. As a novelist he wrote of marginalized characters, but he became more optimistic on Toure's death. His novel Le jeune homme de sable has been regarded as among the best twentieth century African novels. Few of his works have been translated into English
, but Wirriyamu was published in an English translation in 1980. As an editor
he remained critical of Toure as chief editor for the satirical
Le Lynx
paper. Some of Sassine's works have been translated into English, Spanish and Russian.
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
n novelist who wrote in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. His father was Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
and his mother was a Guinean of Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
heritage.
Sassine was an expatriate African writer in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
after leaving Guinea when it received independence under Sékou Touré. As a novelist he wrote of marginalized characters, but he became more optimistic on Toure's death. His novel Le jeune homme de sable has been regarded as among the best twentieth century African novels. Few of his works have been translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, but Wirriyamu was published in an English translation in 1980. As an editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
he remained critical of Toure as chief editor for the satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
Le Lynx
Le Lynx
Le Lynx is a weekly satirical newspaper published in Guinea. The founding director of the newspaper was Souleymane Diallo. Le Lynx is modelled after the French satirical publication Le Canard enchaîné. Williams Sassine worked as editor of Le Lynx....
paper. Some of Sassine's works have been translated into English, Spanish and Russian.
Selected works
- Saint Monsieur Baly (1973)
- Wirriyamu (1976) (in 1980, an English language translation by Clive WakeClive WakeClive Wake is a critic, editor and translator of modern African and French literature.Born in Cape Town, Clive Wake studied at Cape Town University and the Sorbonne. He taught at the University of Rhodesia, and the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he is Emeritus Professor of French and...
and John ReedJohn O. ReedJohn O. Reed is an anthologist and translator of African literature.With Clive Wake he has published several anthologies, as well as translations from French of the work of Léopold Sédar Senghor and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, in Heinemann's African Writers Series...
was published) - Le jeune homme de sable (1979)
- L'Alphabête (1982)
- Le Zéhéros n'est pas n'importe qui (1985)
- L'Afrique en Morceaux (1994)
- Mémoire d'une peau (1998)
Critical studies of Sassine's fictional work
- Asaah, Augustine, ‘L’inscription du corps dans quatre romans postcoloniaux d’Afrique’. Présence Francophone 66 (2006) 57-80.
- Baker, Charlotte, “My Sole Reality, My Only Refuge, My Unique Prison”: The Body of the Black African Albino in Williams Sassine’s Mémoire d’une peau’ in Lili Hernandez and Sabine Krajewski (eds), Crossing Cultural Boundaries (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).
- Chevrier, Jacques, Williams Sassine: écrivain de la marginalité (Toronto: Editions du Gref, 1995).
- Chevrier, Jacques, ‘Malades et infirmes dans l’œuvre romanesque de Williams Sassine’ in Littérature et maladie dans la littérature africaine ed. by Jacqueline Bardolph (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994) pp. 173–187.
- Chevrier, Jacques, ‘La Marginalité, figure du postcolonialisme dans l’œuvre romanesque de Williams Sassine’ in Littératures postcoloniales et francophonie ed. by Jean Bessière and Jean-Marc Moura (Paris: Champion, 1999), 131-139.
- Chevrier, Jacques, ‘De la solitude à la solidarité dans l’œuvre romanesque de Williams Sassine, Notre Librairie, 128 (1996), 126-132.
- Chevrier, Jacques, ‘Le Thème de l’exclusion et de la marginalité dans l’œuvre de Williams Sassine’ in Carrefour de cultures ed. by Régis Antoine (Tübingen, 1993), 431-438.
- Chevrier, Jacques, ‘Williams Sassine: Des mathématiques à la littérature’, Notre Librairie, 88-89 (1987), 110-118.
- Chevrier, Jacques and Richard Bjornson (1992), ‘Williams Sassine’, Research in African Literatures, 23.4, pp. 133–136.
- Coussy, Denise, and Jacques Chevrier, ‘L’Errance chez Williams Sassine et V.S. Naipaul’, Notre Librairie, 155-156 (2004), 68-75.
- De Saivre, Denise ‘Humour et communication: L’exemple de Williams Sassine’. Présence Africaine 147 (1988) 68-79.
- Giguet, Frédéric, ‘La construction tragique de l’identité dans l’œuvre romanesque de Williams Sassine’ in Dominique Laporte (ed.), L’autre en mémoire, Presses Université Laval, 2006. Unpaginated.
- Lebon, Cécile, ‘Williams Sassine Mémoire d’une peau: Review’. Notre Librairie 136 (1998).
- Ngandu Nkashama, Pius, Ecrire à l’infinitif : la déraison de l’écriture dans les romans de Williams Sassine (Paris : Harmattan, 2006).
- Ngandu Nkashama, Pius, ‘Il était une fois, Saint Monsieur Baly...’.
- Sow, Alioune, ‘Forbidden Bodies: Relocation and Empowerment in Williams Sassine’s novels’,
- Wendeler, Catherine, ‘The embodiment of wrath in two postcolonial prophecies: La vie et demie by Sony Labou Tansi and Mémoire d’une peau by Williams Sassine’ (