The Most Famous

WRITERS from Mali

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This page contains a list of the greatest Malian Writers. The pantheon dataset contains 7,302 Writers, 2 of which were born in Mali. This makes Mali the birth place of the 113th most number of Writers behind Jersey, and Malaysia.

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Malian Writers of all time. This list of famous Malian Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Amadou Hampâté Bâ

1. Amadou Hampâté Bâ (1900 - 1991)

With an HPI of 53.02, Amadou Hampâté Bâ is the most famous Malian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages on wikipedia.

Amadou Hampâté Bâ (Fula: 𞤀𞤸𞤥𞤢𞤣𞤵 𞤖𞤢𞤥𞤨𞤢𞥄𞤼𞤫 𞤄𞤢𞥄, romanized: Ahmadu Hampaate Baa, 1900/1901 – 15 May 1991) was a Malian writer, historian, and ethnologist. He was an influential figure in the twentieth-century African literature and cultural heritage. A champion of Africa's oral tradition and traditional knowledge, he is remembered for the saying: "whenever an old man dies, it is as though a library were burning down" ("un vieillard qui meurt, c'est une bibliothèque qui brûle").

Photo of Yambo Ouologuem

2. Yambo Ouologuem (1940 - 2017)

With an HPI of 48.69, Yambo Ouologuem is the 2nd most famous Malian Writer.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Yambo Ouologuem (August 22, 1940 – October 14, 2017) was a Malian writer. His first novel, Le devoir de violence (English: Bound to Violence, 1968), won the Prix Renaudot. He later published Lettre à la France nègre (1969), and Les mille et une bibles du sexe (1969) under the pseudonym Utto Rodolph. Le devoir de violence was initially well-received, but critics later charged that Ouologuem had plagiarized passages from Graham Greene and other established authors such as André Schwartz-Bart. Ouologuem turned away from the Western press as a result of the matter, and remained reclusive for the rest of his life.

People

Pantheon has 2 people classified as Malian writers born between 1900 and 1940. Of these 2, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Malian writers include Amadou Hampâté Bâ, and Yambo Ouologuem.

Deceased Malian Writers

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