Born in 1900 in French West Africa, Malian writer Amadou Hampate Ba was one of the towering figures in the literature of twentieth-century Francophone Africa. In Amkoullel, the Fula Boy, Ba tells in striking detail the story of his youth, which was set against the aftermath of war between the Fula and Toucouleur peoples and the arrival and installation of French colonialism. A master storyteller, Ba recounts pivotal moments of his life and the lives of his powerful and large family, from his first encounter with the white Commandant through the torturous imprisonment of his stepfather and to his forced attendance at French school. He also charts a larger story of life prior to and under the height of French colonialism: inter-ethnic conflicts, the clashing of colonial schools with Islamic education, and the central role indigenous African intermediaries and interpreters played in the functioning of the colonial administration. Engrossing and novelistic, Amkoullel, the Fula Boy is an unparalleled rendering of an individual and his society under transition as they faced the upheavals of colonialism.

Book Information
ISBN 9781478013273
Author Amadou Hampate Ba
Format Hardback
Page Count 400
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 152g