David Diop

Who is David Diop?

David Mandessi Diop was one of the most promising French West African poets known for his contribution to the Négritude literary movement. His work reflects his hatred of colonial rulers and his hope for an independent Africa.

David Diop was born in Bordeaux, France of a Senegalese father and a Cameroonian mother. He had his primary education in Senegal. He started writing poems while he was still in school, and his poems started appearing in Présence Africaine since he was just 15. Several of his poems were published in Léopold Senghor's famous anthology, which became a landmark of modern black writing in French. He died in a plane crash, at the age of 33, in 1960.