SEMBNE, OUSMANE

born Jan. 1, 1923, Ziguinchor-Casamance, Senegal Senegalese writer and film director known for his historical-political themes. Sembne spent his early years as a fisherman on the Casamance coast. He studied at the School of Ceramics at Marsassoum and then moved to Dakar, where he found work as a bricklayer, plumber, and apprentice mechanic until he was drafted into the French army in 1939. In 1942, during World War II, he joined the Free French forces and landed in France for the first time in 1944. After demobilization he remained in France, working as a docker in Marseille, and became a militant trade unionist. Sembne taught himself to read and write in French and in 1956 published his first novel, Le Docker noir (Black Docker), based on his experiences in Marseille. After a spinal disorder forced him to give up physical labour, he made literature his livelihood. Among the works that followed were pays, mon beau peuple! (1957; O My Country, My Good People) and Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (1960; God's Bits of Wood), which depicts an African workers' railroad strike and the attempts to combat colonialism; a volume of short stories entitled Voltaque (1962; Tribal Scars and Other Stories); L'Harmattan (1964; The Wind); and Xala (1973), which also provided the subject of one of his best films (1974). About 1960 Sembne developed an interest in motion pictures, in an attempt to reach an African popular audience, 80 percent of whom did not know French or have access to books in any language. After studying at the Moscow Film School, Sembne returned to Africa and made three short subject films, all three reflecting a strong social commitment, and in 1966 a feature film, La Noire de . . . (Black Girl), the first ever produced by an African filmmaker. It depicted the virtual enslavement of an illiterate girl from Dakar employed as a servant by a French family. The film won a major prize at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival. With Mandabi (The Money Order), a comedy of daily life and corruption in Dakar, Sembne in 1968 made the revolutionary decision to film in the Wolof language. His masterpiece, Ceddo (1977; Outsiders), an ambitious, panoramic account of aspects of African religions, was also in Wolof and was banned in his native Senegal. Camp de Thiaroye (1988; The Camp at Thiaroye) depicted an event in 1944 in which French troops slaughtered a camp of rebellious African war veterans. Guelwaar (1992) tells of the confusion that arises when the bodies of a Muslim and a Catholic (Guelwaar) are switched at the morgue; it is a commentary on the fractious religious life of Senegal. The writer-director's cinematic achievements are examined in A Call to Action: The Films of Ousmane Sembene (1996; Sheila Petty, ed.).