Adame Ba Konaré

Who is Adame Ba Konaré?

Adame Ba Konaré is a noted Malian historian and writer who is married to Alpha Oumar Konaré, former President of Mali. She is active in several causes for newborns and refugees.

Adam Ba Konare, hailing from a Fula family, studied in Poland during the Cold War along with her husband. She earned a degree in history and was a professor until her husband's presidency. She has written various types of books, from biographies to philosophy and even a novel, the plot of which focuses on the social gap in a fictional society redolent of Mali's. For this book, her style has been compared to French authors Zola and Hugo's works.

Although officially retired, she is often invited to world Historian conferences and has made herself popular for saying once on a French channel: "The hen knows the sun has risen and yet lets the rooster sing", which many consider to be a "Feminist" Malian proverb. Adam Ba Konare is also a convinced feminist, and the founder in Bamako of one of the few "woman's museums" in Africa.

Recently, she has been involved in a project to promote African History, following French president Nicolas Sarkozy's speech in Dakar. The movement aims to write a history of Africa, defending the African legacy and past civilizations. As an historian, Adam Ba Konare disagreed with Sarkozy's speech and invited African historians, intellectuals and all friends of Africa to join to write a rebuttal to Sarkozy's speech in order to denounce "the attacks on African memory".