Djibril Tamsir Niane audiorecordings documenting Guinean oral traditions

Djibril Tamsir Niane (II) was born in Conakry, Guinea, in 1932. He is a noted Guinean scholar historian, editor, dramatist and author of Epopée de Soundiata (1960, published in English as Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali in 1965). He published widely on West African oral tradition and West African history. His early career spanned the tumultuous years of Sékou Touré’s regime in Guinea. From 1961 to 1964 he was imprisoned for his activities as a member of the teachers' union. He was released to take part in a Polish-Guinean archeological expedition, on which he worked until 1967. In 1968, Niane became dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Conakry. While there, he conducted ethnographic research on Guinean oral traditions. In Guinea-Conakry from 1969 to 1971, Professor Niane conducted research while the Sékou Touré regime’s "demystification program" focused on the destruction of all traditional cultural elements, actively discouraging academic interest in such subjects. At considerable personal risk, Niane and a team of his university students investigated Baga culture in their coastal villages, as well as collecting oral history and tradition elsewhere in Guinea. Fearing further political persecution, Niane left Guinea in 1972. He escaped to Dakar, Senegal, where he and his family remained in exile until the death of Touré in 1984. In addition to his scholarly career, Niane held several ministerial and cultural posts while in Dakar and was a member of the comité de pilotage in Guinea.

Sources: Conrad, David C. “Bold Research During Troubled Times in Guinea: The Story of the Djibril Tamsir Niane Tape Archive,” History of Africa 37 ( 2010), 355-378, and “Djibril Tamsir Niane,” in Henry L. Gates Jr., and Emmanuel Akyeampong (eds.), Dictionary of African Biography (Oxford, in press).