{{short description|French-Senegalese writer|bot=PearBOT 5}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] --> | image = Fatou diome LSlaP 101533.jpg | imagesize = 200px | name = | caption = Fatou Diome (2019) | pseudonym = | birth_date = 1968 | birth_place = [[Niodior]], [[Senegal]] | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = [[Novelist]], [[short story]] writer, [[essay]]ist | nationality = [[Senegalese]], [[France|French]] | period = 2001–present | genre = [[Literary fiction]] | subject = | movement = | spouse = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | signature = | website = }} '''Fatou Diome''' (born 1968 in Niodior) is a [[France|French]]-[[Senegal|Senegalese]] writer known for her best-selling novel ''The Belly of the Atlantic'', which was published in 2003.<ref>[https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&cqlMode=true&query=nid%3D7655543-4 "Le ventre de l'Atlantique", erschienen: 2003]. [[German National Library|dnb.de]] (in German). Retrieved 20 July 2025.</ref> Her work explores immigrant life in [[France]], and the relationship between France and Africa. Fatou Diome lives in [[Strasbourg]], France.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
==Biography== Fatou Diome was born in [[Niodior]] on the island of the same name in the [[Sine-Saloum]] Delta. She was raised by her grandmother and grandfather and went to school and became passionate about French literature. At the age of 13 she left [[Niodior Arrondissement|Niodior]] and continued her education in [[M'Bour]]. Later she moved to [[Dakar]] to study at the university, supporting herself by working as a housekeeper.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
In 1990, she married a Frenchman and moved to [[France]]. Rejected by her traditional [[Serer people|Serer]] family and by his family, she divorced two years later.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}} In 1994 Diome moved to [[Strasbourg]] to study at the [[University of Strasbourg]]. The title of her Ph.D. thesis was ''Le Voyage, les échanges et la formation dans l'œuvre littéraire et cinématographique de [[Ousmane Sembène]]'' (Voyage, Exchanges, and Education in the Literary and Cinematographic Work of Ousmane Sembène).{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
From 2002 to 2003, Diome was a part-time lecturer at [[Marc Bloch University]], Strasbourg, and at the Institute of Pedagogy of [[Karlsruhe]] (Germany).<ref name=aflit /> From September 2004 to November 2006, she presented the cultural and literary television program ''Nuit Blanche'' (Sleepless night) on the French channel [[France 3 Alsace]].<ref name=aflit>[http://aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au/DiomeFatouEng.html "Fatou Diome - An author from Senegal writing in French", Reading Women Writers and African Literatures.]</ref>
==Works== Diome published a collection of short stories, ''La Préférence nationale'', in 2001. Her first novel, ''The Belly of the Atlantic'' ({{langx|fr|Le Ventre de l'Atlantique}}) became a bestseller in France and is published in English by [[Serpent's Tail]]. {{Citation needed|date=May 2022}} Her first novel was partly autobiographical and is about Salie, a Senegalese immigrant living in Strasbourg, and her younger brother Madicke, who stayed behind in Senegal. After years of struggle Salie has finally arrived and settled in France. Her younger brother dreams of following her to France and becoming a successful football player. ''The Belly of the Atlantic'' was translated into English, German and Spanish. Her second novel, ''Kétala'', was published in 2006 in France.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
Diome's work explores France and Senegal, and the relationship between the two countries. Her style is influenced by the traditional [[oral literature]] of Africa. Her language is authentic and vivid, and it traces a portrait of the difficulties of integrating in France as an immigrant, mixed with nostalgia and memories of a childhood in Senegal.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
==Political views==
Fatou Diome rebels against intolerant people, she defends the role of the school and [[Republicanism]].
Faced with the rise of populism, Fatou Diome is regularly invited to share her point of view on political and social issues on television media or press. In particular, she takes a strong position against the rise of populism in France with the “[[National Rally (France)|Rassemblement National]]”. As a writer, in her books, she wishes to remind people of the importance of republican and human values because she believes that “when facing people who are obsessed with national identity, we must no longer remain silent”.<ref>{{cite web|title=L'écrivaine Fatou Diome : « il ne faut plus se taire » - Elle|url=https://www.elle.fr/Societe/Interviews/L-ecrivaine-Fatou-Diome-il-ne-faut-plus-se-taire-3471689|website=elle.fr|language=fr|date=2017-04-21|access-date=2020-03-12|publication-date=}}</ref>
Diome pursues the subject of debt and neoliberalization in "Le ventre de l'Atlantique" (2003) and "Celles qui attendent" (2010). In both works, debt is used to defend austerity measures and drive immigrants to pursue jobs in other countries under precarious conditions.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Perisic|first=Alexandra|title="The Indebted Immigrant" (Chapter 5 of): Precarious Crossings: Immigration, Neoliberalism, and the Atlantic.|publisher=The Ohio State University Press|year=2019|isbn=978-0-8142-1410-7|location=Ohio|pages=62-87}}</ref>
Diome also runs messages for a more egalitarian cooperation between Europe and Africa. She believes that, at the moment, Europe is controlling an unequal cooperation where Africa has no control on its assets. She also defends the idea that the former colonial power relationship remains persistent on each African and European people, which prevents this cooperation from being more egalitarian. She thinks that everyone, regardless of their origin, “should feel human being when facing another human being”.<ref>{{cite web|title=Fatou Diome. « Je suis là pour gâcher le sommeil des puissants »|url=https://www.humanite.fr/fatou-diome-je-suis-la-pour-gacher-le-sommeil-des-puissants-581117|website=L'Humanité|language=fr|date=2015-08-07|access-date=2020-03-12|publication-date=}}</ref> Therefore, without placing more responsibility on one continent than on the other, Fatou Diome proclaims the need for Africans to free themselves from their victim status and for Europeans to give up their dominant position in order to put an end to exploiting/exploited, donor/recipient schemes. Finally, the author specifies that helping people means helping them not to need you any longer, denouncing the development aid set up by Western countries in Africa among others.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
==Bibliography== * {{lang|fr|La Préférence nationale}} (short stories). Paris/Dakar: {{lang|fr|[[Présence africaine]]}}, March 16, 2001. {{ISBN|978-2-7087-0722-1}} * {{lang|fr|Le Ventre de l'Atlantique}} (novel). Paris: Anne Carrière, August 20, 2003. {{ISBN|978-2-84337-238-4}}. **Translated as ''The Belly of the Atlantic''. London: Serpent's Tail, September 4, 2006. {{ISBN|978-1-85242-903-4}} * {{lang|fr|Kétala}} (novel). Paris: Flammarion, March 10, 2006. {{ISBN|978-2-08-068993-1}} * ''Inassouvies, nos vies'' [Our unfulfilled lives] (novel). Paris: Flammarion, 2008. {{ISBN|978-2-0812-1353-1}}. * ''Le vieil homme sur la barque'' (autobiographical). Paris: naïve, 2010. (46p.). {{ISBN|978-2-35021-213-5}}. * ''Celles qui attendent'' (novel). Paris: Flammarion, 2010. {{ISBN|978-2-0812-4563-1}}. *''Mauve'', récit, Éditions Flammarion, 2010. *''Impossible de grandir'', novel, Éditions Flammarion, 2013. {{ISBN|9782081290297}} *''Marianne porte plainte!'', essai, Éditions Flammarion, 2017. {{ISBN|978-2-081408463}} *''Les veilleurs de Sangomar'', novel, Albin Michel, 2019. {{ISBN|9782226443861}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[[Emily Brady]], [https://web.archive.org/web/20050314023425/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901031215-557045,00.html "Out of Africa, Hot in France", ''Time'' magazine, December 7, 2003.] *[http://photo75.free.fr/pages/fatou%20diome1.html Photograph of Diome by Xavier Thomas] *[http://aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au/DiomeFatouEng.html "Fatou Diome - An author from Senegal writing in French", Reading Women Writers and African Literatures.] *[http://aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au/revieweng_diome09.html Jean-Marie Volet: "NOT TO BE MISSED, ''Le ventre de l'Atlantique'', a novel by Fatou Diome", September 2009, The University of Western Australia/School of Humanities]
{{Serer topics}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diome, Fatou}} [[Category:1968 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Serer writers]] [[Category:Senegalese women writers]] [[Category:21st-century Senegalese writers]] [[Category:Senegalese novelists]] [[Category:21st-century French novelists]] [[Category:French women short story writers]] [[Category:21st-century French short story writers]] [[Category:French women essayists]] [[Category:21st-century French essayists]] [[Category:Senegalese emigrants to France]] [[Category:21st-century French women novelists]]