Drame blends literature and human rights

When Kandioura Drame, associate professor of French language and literature, traveled to South Africa to present a paper at a conference in Durban this past summer, he had a second agenda.

Drame also spent time in Senegal and Zimbabwe on behalf of the African Literature Association (ALA), a scholarly organization whose mission includes protecting and defending the human rights of African writers.

“The raison d’etre of the association is to promote African literature through its writing, publication and teaching,” said Drame, who becomes the ALA’s president in April. But the ALA also regularly monitors the continent for human rights violations and often takes action on behalf of African writers.

For example, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka (who gave a series of lectures at U.Va. last year), fled Nigeria in 1994 when his security was seriously threatened by the country’s military dictatorship. In response, the ALA organized a worldwide public awareness campaign that contributed to Soyinka’s safety and eventual return to Nigeria four years later.

Still, the ALA’s humanitarian efforts serve the larger purpose of making the thoughts of African writers available to a broader readership worldwide, Drame said. “One thing I learned of on my trip is the wealth of literature in African languages, most of which is not well known.”