SOURCE- INDIAN EXPRESS,  HARPER COLLINS AND WIKIPEDIA

Djaïli Amadou Amal was born in 1975 in Diamaré in the far north region of Cameroon and grew up in the capital city of Maroua.

A Fulani author and activist fighting for women’s rights, she founded and runs Femmes du Sahel, an organization dedicated to promoting the education and development of women in her region.

She is the author of three previous books written in French, and the French edition of The Impatients was shortlisted for the 2020 Prix Goncourt and won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. Amal lives in France.

WHY IS SHE IN THE NEWS?

Amal writes of the Fulbe culture and explores the social problems of both a contemporary and traditional nature. Her work confronts the problems of women in Fulani society, as well as social problems in her region, the Sahel, especially the discrimination against women. Some of her novels are Walaande, which is a Fulfulde word for conjugal unity, addressing the issue of polygamy among the Fulani who commonly practice polygamy. Walaande tells the story of four wives who have conceded to "the art of sharing a husband".

Two of her other novels are Mistiriijo and La Mangeuse d'âmes (in English, The Eater of Souls). She writes mostly in the French language. 

One day, years later, she picked up a notebook. She had always been drawing and writing poetry. “But that day there was a pen, I took it and started writing. After a while, a certain calm came over me, I felt better. Maybe that was a survival instinct.” It took her a while to realize what she was writing.

“I wrote myself. I let out everything that was inside me. I was screaming out how unhappy I was.”

She didn’t realize then that she was in the process of writing her first book. But it gave her the strength to break free from the marriage.

Ten years later, she would find the strength to leave a second marriage to an abusive man. “I often say that literature saved me,” she says.

Meanwhile, literature cast her into the international spotlight, especially through her third novel. Published in Cameroon in 2017, it caught the attention of a Parisian publisher. Together they released a revised version that was shortlisted for France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, in 2020 — a first for an African female author.

The fact that she ended up winning the Prix Goncourt des Lyceens, awarded by a youth jury, was far more than a consolation. It saw her book being made compulsory reading in Cameroonian schools and opening the eyes of the younger generation.