Ousmane Socé

Who was Ousmane Socé?

Ousmane Diop Socé was a writer, politician, and one of the first Senegalese novelists. He attended a Qur'anic school, and later entered into the colonial school system, from which he would become one of the first African students to receive a scholarship to study at a French university. He studied veterinary medicine, during which time he would have two novels published in Paris—Karin and Mirages de Paris. The former expressed a concern of Socé's where young Africans would face problems moving from rural to urban areas, while the in latter he incorporated his own experiences in writing about the tragic love story of a Senegalese student and a French woman. Like that of other early Senegalese novelists, his writing was heavily influenced by his French counterparts—inventing a plot and leading their characters into various sorts of adventures. They also borrowed techniques such as dialogue, flashbacks, and stream of consciousness.

Socé later wrote a number of animal and historical tales in his Contes et légendes d'Afrique noire which he drew from Senegalese oral tradition. He founded the magazine Bingo in 1953, and in 1956 had Rythmes du Khalam, a volume of poetry, published. He also served as Senegal's ambassador to the United States and delegate to the United Nations. However, he was forced to retire in 1968 due to increasing blindness.