Kama Sywor Kamanda

Kama Sywor Kamanda(11 November 1952, Congo) is a Congolese French speaking writer, poet, novelist, playwright, speaker, essayist and storyteller from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is also a committed intellectual who contributes to the evolution of ideas and the history of Africa. He was born in Luebo in the province of Kasaï Occidental in Congo Kinshasa on 11 November 1952. His first publication, Les Contes des veillées africaines was an immediate success. From the beginning of his career, his literary work has stood out due to its originality, its unique style and its themes. As per literary critics: Kamanda owes much of his world renown as a writer to his "Kamanda Tales", as they should be called for their evocative power and literary quality, which rank this African writer among the greatest classic authors such as Andersen, Grimm, Perrault and Maupassant. Kama Sywor Kamanda is considered as the Africa's greatest storyteller.

Kamanda Kama Sywor, writer, poet, novelist, essayist, playwright and storyteller was born on November 11, 1952, in Luebo, Democratic Republic of Congo, from father Malaba Kamenga and mother Kony Ngalula. His political view of this country forced him to leave Africa and live in exile in Europe. Nevertheless, he always stays a great leader of opinion in the world and his works are impregnated with his fight for liberty and justice and real democracy in this country. He wrote many poetry books, drama, novels, essays and fairy tales. Kamanda is a classical writer in Europe, Asia,Africa and America. Many students in the world study his literature. He has earned many literature prizes, including the Heredia prize from the Académie Française. He is spoken of as a potential Nobel Prize laureate in Literature. After publishing a first collection of stories at the age of 15, Kamanda studied literature, journalism, political science, philosophy and law, and worked in journalism. In 1970, he participated in the creation of the Union of Congolese Writers (Union des écrivains congolais). Forced to leave the Congo in 1977 due to his political activities, Kamanda lived in various European countries before settling in Luxembourg. In 1985, Kamanda was the founding president of the African Association of Writers, of which L. S. Senghor was the honorary president. As a poet, story teller and novelist, Kamanda subsequently produced a considerable body of literary work, including a dozen anthologies of poetry, several hundred stories, as well as several novels. Living in perpetual exile, this universal writer has gained worldwide notoriety that has seen him travelling constantly for conferences, poetry readings and festivals. Kamanda's works have been translated into many languages, including English, Japanese, Italian, and Greek. This writer has earned several major prizes and distinctions, including the Paul Verlaine Prize from the Académie française (1987), the Louise Labé Prize (1990), the Black Africa Grand Prize for Literature (1991), and the Théophile Gautier prize (1993) from the Académie française. In 2005, the International Council for Francophone Studies (Conseil international d'études francophones) conferred upon him the prestigious Maurice Cagnon Certificate of Honour, for his unique contribution to world francophone literature. His stories draw their imagery from African traditions, but constitute a universe at the boundary between the fantastic and the author's own reality. His numerous books of poetry focus on the themes of celebrating Africa and of the pain of exile and solitude, all against a backdrop of fervent celebration of love.

Through his story telling, Kamanda has been able to combine personal memories, tradition and imagination. It is not a collection of stories, but a literary work in its own right, nurtured by folk themes and local legends. Playwright, storyteller, poet and novelist, Kamanda has produced a huge and internationally recognized literary work. Since the publication of his first book, Les Contes des veillées africaines, in 1967, he has written a dozen books totalling a thousand poems, a dozen plays, two essays and several collections bringing together hundreds of stories. His literary output also includes several novels.

He is known for his literary tales which are inspired by his personal experiences, his imagination and the traditions and realities of the African continent. Kamanda’s tales are enchanting stories imbued with the culture and civilization of all African lands. His literary genius has been universally recognized in his lifetime. Due to the originality of the form and the substance of his writings, it is difficult to categorize it in a literary movement. Poet. Kamanda has breathed new life back into contemporary poetry and restored its grandeur, thanks to the wealth of his language and mastery of metaphor. Critics and some of the greatest poets of his time, including Mario Luzi and Léopold Sédar Senghor, have emphasised the power of his verses and the richness of his imagery. According to the Bulletin Critique du Livre Français (BCLF, No. 529, entry 150655, Jan. 1990): "The poetic cry of Kamanda touches us and overwhelms us all the more because it is truly poetic. The suffering of uprooted lives and dualisms, the quest for love and hope. Elegiac poetry where the plaint takes speech as a fertile source, to speak of the dry land, the indifference of the other, the dead end. But the most heartbreaking cries right through this African tradition take on the warm bright colors of childhood, of a past the exiled poet finds within himself. The jasmine, the wisteria, these "sweet children like the blackness of the ebony", explode with a savour for which we were unable to be guardians or lovers. The poet's struggle is so fundamental, the choice of his words so evident that they rank him among the greatest chanters of misery and compassion. Violent like Hugo, able to use litanies like Peguy, as lyrical as Eluard. His work takes on all forms of the universal clamor which, from the beginning to the end of time, talks continuously to the attentive ear.” Kamanda has received many awards, including, in 2009, the French Academy’s Prix Heredia for Œuvre poétique: édition intégrale i. e., the complete edition of his poetic works.

Kamanda constantly embodies Africa and its dreams. His writings reveal him to be a genuine résistant against totalitarian powers, but he also comes to the aid of men and women fighting in silence for their rights or their survival, and that of their children. A committed writer, he has always considered himself a "lost soul between the dreams and the illusions, the joys and the sorrows of the African world." His novels depict the life of African peoples at the time of dictators and under the influence of racist and neo colonialist sects, and the social and economic consequences of the black populations deprived of any financial clout to influence their own destiny. He highlights the contradictions of the black people of all continents who both serve exclusively the interests of their tormenters, over those in their own community that struggle for their rights and resist predation, and are victims of racist, ideological and religious issues that overwhelm them. L'Insondable destin des Hommes expresses a deep and original reflection on bad governance, political violence and economic predation as the main reasons for the migration of African youth condemned to death in the desert and at sea. In La Joueuse de Kora, he evokes his ideal of justice and truth and his quest for peace and collective happiness without racism or apartheid, while his characters and intrigues in La Traversée des mirages are inspired by the actors and realities of political life.

Kamanda surprises by the originality of his theatrical themes and by his erudition. His knowledge of today's Africa and that of yesteryear is indisputable. He shares with his audiences a broad swathe of African memory, for which he is the recognized spokesman, if not the guardian. His theatre is inspired by Africa past and present. Ancient Egypt finds a new literary existence through his playwriting skills. The Pharaohs and Queens of ancient Egypt finally have a new literary life and an author who pays them a long awaited tribute hoped for a thousand times over. Literary recognition of the great African rulers, to which they were entitled, but which no one hitherto had dreamed of legitimizing. Ramsès II, Candace 1ère, and Toutankhamon are Kama Sywor Kamanda plays that testify to Africa's contribution to universal civilization. Kamanda is not bound by his native Africa; he travels the world and carries us with him through his imagination, poetry and love of peoples and cultures of the world. Thus he invites us to discover Japan and all its traditions in "On peut s'aimer sans se comprendre".

"A free people is one that gives itself the means for financial independence to remain master of its destiny." "To be optimistic is always to look where the sun is rising and not where it is setting." "Self censorship is a violation of integrity." "To love is to discover happiness." "Our most fruitful passion is to offer man wings that help to fly over the ordeals."