Death of Senegalese writer Cheikh Hamidou Kane at 98

His work The Ambiguous Adventure is one of the classics of African literature. Senegalese writer and statesman Cheikh Hamidou Kane died Saturday evening in Dakar at the age of 98, the press and Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye announced. “I learned with deep sadness of Sheikh Hamidou Kane’s call to God”President Bassirou Diomaye Faye wrote on Facebook.

With The Ambiguous Adventure, “he gave generations of Africans the words to think about a question that still haunts us, that of opening ourselves to the knowledge of the world without losing anything of what we are. Minister of the Republic, he also served Senegal with dedication”added the head of state.

Skip the ad

A work studied in high schools and universities

Born in Matam, in the northeast of Senegal, on April 2, 1928, Cheikh Hamidou Kane grew up between Koranic education and French schooling, a dual training, both Islamic and Western, which deeply inspired his work. His semi-autobiographical book published in 1961, The Ambiguous Adventureis a coming-of-age novel where the values ​​of Islam and the country of Diallobé meet those of the West.

Translated into around forty languages, The Ambiguous Adventure earned Cheikh Hamidou Kane the Grand Literary Prize for Black Africa in 1962, awarded by the Association of French-language Writers. Having become a classic of French-speaking African literature, the work has been studied for decades in numerous high schools, colleges and universities across the African continent.

“Through his work, his thought and his commitment, he leaves a major intellectual and cultural legacy, which will continue to nourish the reflection of generations of readers, students and researchers”wrote on Facebook the Cheikh-Anta-Diop University of Dakar, the main higher education establishment in the capital.

Alongside his literary career, Cheikh Hamidou Kane held several high public positions, notably as governor of the Thiès region, then Minister of Planning and Cooperation in the 1980s.