African Présence is a Panafrican review semi-annual, founded by Alioune Diop in 1947 and which always appears.

It is also a publisher, founded in 1949, and a bookstore located in the Latin Quarter at Paris.

Origins

The birth of the review falls under the mobility of the panafricanism whose ideas are expressed since the beginning of the 20th century, in particular at the time of several congresses, of which that of Paris in 1919, organized by W.E.B. Dubois supported by Blaise Diagne. The intellectuals are also marked by the Surréalisme and the Marxisme. In 1936 the Popular front confronts the Africans living in France with the union world and policy and this dynamics finds an echo in particular with the Senegal. Lastly, the freedom found at the conclusion of the Second world war raises from now on with acuity the question of the sovereignty of the people and the cultures on a worldwide scale, and in particular in Africa. Gradually periodicals call on the Noirs, such as the Review of the Black World , Self-defense , the black Student or Tropiques , published by Aimé Césaire at the beginning of the Années 1940.

The radiation of the review

It is in this context that the review is created in November - December 1947 by Alioune Diop, professor of philosophy born with the Senegal, with the support of intellectuals, writers or anthropologists, such as Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Richard Wright, Albert Camus, André Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, Theodore Monod, Georges Balandier or Michel Leiris.

In the first number - with a foreword of Andre Gide - Alioune Diop declares that “the review is not placed under the obedience of any ideology or policy. She wants to open with the collaboration of all the men of good will (White, Jaunes or Black), likely to help us to define the African originality and to hasten her insertion in the modern world”.

The review meets success and as of 1949 the publisher of the same name is created. The first title published is the work - discussed - Dutch Placide Tempels, philosophy bantoue .

During the Years 1950 and 1960, the review militates actively in favor of the emergence of an independent African culture. Genuine intellectual engine, it offers a platform of choice to the rising figures of the literary and political world. Mentalities thus precede the political decisions in the accession with independence.

In 1954, the review mixed liability company a documentary short-measuring, carried out by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, the Statues also die, or the question of negro Art in the years 1950 . Denunciation of the misdeeds of the Colonization, the film obtains the Prix Jean-Vigo, but it is interdict during ten years.

In 1956, African Présence joins together in the large Descartes amphitheater of the Sorbonne the first Congrès of the writers and black artists, an event which one sometimes described as “cultural Bandung”, in reference to the Conférence of Bandung which had been held in 1955. The African Société of culture (SAC) is constituted at the conclusion of this first congress.

In 1966, in independent Senegal from now on, Alioune Diop and its team organize with Léopold Sédar Senghor the first world Festival of negro Arts with Dakar.

Since the death of Alioune Diop in 1980, its widow Yandé Christiane Diop took again the torch. The 50e birthday of the review was celebrated solemnly by a conference organized with the seat of UNESCO to Paris from December 3rd to 5th 1997, in the presence of many personalities, such as Léopold Sédar Senghor, Daniel Maximin or Wole Soyinka.

The current Director of the publication is Romuald Fonkoua, professor of literature French and compared with the Université Marc Bloch of Strasbourg.

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