Tanella Boni

Tanella Suzanne Boni (born 1954) is an Ivorian poet and novelist. Also an academic, she is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Abidjan. Apart from her teaching and research activities, she was the President of the Association of writers of the Côte d'Ivoire from 1991 to 1997, and later the organizer of the International Poetry Festival in Abidjan from 1998 to 2002.

Tanella Boni - book fair in Geneva 2012

Biography

Tanella Boni was born in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, where she was educated to high-school level, before going on to further university studies in Toulouse, France, and at the University of Paris, obtaining a PhD.[1] She subsequently became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cocody-Abidjan (now the University of Félix Houphouët-Boigny), as well as writing poetry, novels, short stories, criticism, and children's literature.

She served as President of the Writers' Association of Côte d'Ivoire from 1991 to 1997[2] and organized Abidjan's International Poetry Festival from 1998 to 2002.[3] During the political strife in Côte d'Ivoire (from 2002 until 2011) she self-exiled to France.[4][5] In 2005, she received the Ahmadou Kourouma Prize for her novel Matins de couvre-feu (Mornings after curfew). In 2009 she won the Antonio Viccaro International Poetry Prize. Since 2013, Boni divides her time between Abidjan and Paris.[5]

She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[6]

Bibliography
  • Labyrinthe (poems), Editions Akpagnon, Lomé 1984
  • Une vie de crabe (novel), Dakar: Nouvelles Editions Africaines du Sénégal, 1990
  • De l'autre côté du soleil (children's story), Paris: NEA-EDICEF, 1991
  • La fugue d'Ozone (children's story), Paris: NEA-EDICEF, 1992
  • Grains de sable (poems), Limoges: Le bruit des autres, 1993
  • Les baigneurs du Lac rose (novel), Abidjan: Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, 1995; Paris: Editions du Serpent à Plumes, 2002
  • Il n'y a pas de parole heureuse (poems), Limoges: Le bruit des autres, 1997
  • L'atelier des génies (children's story), Paris: Acoria, 2001
  • Chaque jour l'espérance (poems), Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002
  • Ma peau est fenêtre d'avenir (poems), La Rochelle: Rumeur des Ages, 2004
  • Gorée île baobab (poems), Limoges & Ecrits des forges, Trois-Rivières (Québec), 2004
  • Matins de couvre-feu (novel), Paris: Editions du Serpent à plumes, 2005
  • Que vivent les femmes d'Afrique (essay), Paris: Editions Panama, 2008, ISBN 978-2755701425
  • Les nègres n’iront jamais au paradis (novel), Paris: Editions du Serpent à Plumes, 2006
  • Le Rêve du dromadaire (poems, illustrated by Muriel Diallo), Cotonou: Ruisseaux d’Afrique, 2009
  • Myriam Makeba : une voix pour la liberté (biography), Paris: Éditions À dos d'âne, 2009
  • Jusqu’au souvenir de ton visage (poems), Paris: Alfabarre, 2010
  • L’avenir a rendez-vous avec l’aube (poems), Vents d’ailleurs, Festival de La Roque-d'Anthéron, 2011, ISBN 978-2911412929. Translated into English by Todd Fredson as The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn, with an Introduction by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, University of Nebraska Press, 2018, ISBN 978-1496211859
  • Toute d’étincelles vêtue (poems), La Roque-d’Anthéron: Vents d’ailleurs, 2014
  • Là où il fait si clair en moi (poems), Paris: Éditions Bruno Doucey, 2017

Awards
  • 2005: Ahmadou Kourouma Prize for Matins de couvre-feu
  • 2009: Antonio Vicarro International Poetry Prize[3]

References
  1. "Tanella Boni" at Aflit, The University of Western Australia.
  2. "Tanella Boni (Cote de Ivoire)", Centre for Creative Arts, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
  3. "Tanella Boni (Côte d'Ivoire)", UNESCO.
  4. Polo Moji, "Domesticating Ivoirité: Equating xenophobic nationalism and women’s marginalisation in Tanella Boni’s Matins de couvre-feu (2005)", International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, Volume 8, Issue 2, 2013.
  5. Tanella Boni biography, Europe Now, Council for European Studies, 1 March 2018.
  6. Otosirieze Obi-Young, "Margaret Busby-Edited Anthology to Feature 200 Female Writers Including Adichie, Aminatta Forna, Bernadine Evaristo, Imbolo Mbue, Warsan Shire, Zadie Smith", Brittle Paper, 10 January 2018.
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