Senegalese author and filmmaker Sembène Ousmane's literary work is voluminous, complex, and visionary, comprising eight novels and sixteen short stories written between 1956 and 1996. Two of his most brilliant and political novels, Le Docker noir and Les Bouts de bois de Dieu, were written while he worked in the port of Marseille in the 1950s. His pan-African political convictions were driven by a desire to improve working-class conditions, both in mainland France and in French West Africa. This multi-faceted discussion will touch on topics such as archival research, political praxis, and literary analysis and provide a unique opporunity to learn more about a Francophone African author and filmmaker whose archives are held at the Lilly Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Indiana University - Bloomington.

Invited speakers Dr. Valérie Berty (NYU Paris) and publisher Dr. Renaud Boukh recently collaborated on a new critical edition of Le Docker noir and will address Sembène's work from both an archival and a literary perspective. While Boukh's intervention will treat the significance of document-based research to grasping the radicalism and militant training of the author, Berty's research delves into Sembène's use of narrative strategies, thematic choices, formal elements, and characters to go beyond the realities of the contemporary period. Dr. Eileen Julien, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, French and Italian, and African Studies at Indiana University - Bloomington, will join the roundtable discussion as a respondent.