L’enfance d’Hampâté Bâ, de l’école coranique à l’école des colons

Abstract

In Amkoullel, the Fula Child, published the same year as his death in 1991, Hampâté Bâ recounts his childhood in Mali. Son of an aristocratic family, he was first educated in a Koranic school, then sent to a colonists' school to learn French. A bright student, he travelled from his native town Bandiagara to Djenné, where he received a diploma in Indigenous Studies, and then to Bamako, where he passed the competitive exam allowing him entrance into a teacher-training school in Gorée. His account of these experiences shows a child confronting his conflicting loyalties, between the oral traditions of his family life and a Muslim education, on one hand, and, on the other, the French education where he must learn "the language of leaders." Which of the two schools will triumph over the other? Can he remain "Amkoullel, the Fula Child?”

Keywords

• tradition
• identity
• colonialization
• written culture
• oral culture
• colonial school