Antoinette Tidjani Alou is a Jamaican-Nigerien academic, film-maker and writer, whose work focuses on the constructions of

Sahelian The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid cli ...

identity in written and oral literature, as well as women in Sahelian identities. She published a novel ''On m'appelle Nina'' in 2016 and a collection of poems with a memoir ''Tina shot me between the eyes and other stories'' in 2017. She is a lecturer in Comparative Literature and in 2016 was appointed Coordinator of the Arts and Culture Department at

Abdou Moumouni University Abdou Moumouni University (French: Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, UAM) was formerly the University of Niamey from 1974 to 1994. On the right bank of the Niger River in Niamey, its students and faculty have historically been involved in prote ...

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesJamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

and her secondary education took place at Convent of Mercy Academy 'Aplaha' in Kingston. She studied at the University of the West Indies in Kingston where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. She continued her studies and was awarded a doctorate at the University Michel de Montaigne-Bordeaux 3. She defended her thesis in 1991 on the dramatic works of

Paul Claudel Paul Claudel (; 6 August 1868 – 23 February 1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism. Early lif ...

Teaching and research

Tidjani Alou began teaching French and comparative literature at

Niamey Niamey () is the capital and largest city of Niger. Niamey lies on the Niger River, primarily situated on the east bank. Niamey's population was counted as 1,026,848 as of the 2012 census. As of 2017, population projections show the capital dis ...

in 1994. She is a lecturer in Comparative Literature and in 2016 was appointed Coordinator of the Arts and Culture Department. Her research focuses on the constructions of Sahelian identity in written and oral literature, as well as the political constructions of identity. She is also an expert on depictions of the mytho-historical figure of Sarraounia. In 2006, she was appointed president of the International Association for Oral Literature of Africa (ISOLA), a position she held for eight years. She has worked on the Women Writing Africa Project and is a member of the research group ''Literature, Gender and Development: Nigerien Visions and Perspectives.''

Literary career

Between her childhood in Jamaica, her university education in France, and her professional life in Niger, Tidjani Alou has adapted to different cultures.Olatoun Gabi-Williams
Antoinette Tidjani Alou: "Tina shot me between the eyes and other stories"
� DF/abbr>, sur ''bordersliteratureonline.net'', 2018 She published her first novel, ''On m'appelle Nina'' in 2016 with

Présence Africaine ''Présence Africaine'' is a pan-African quarterly cultural, political, and literary magazine, published in Paris, France, and founded by Alioune Diop in 1947. In 1949, ''Présence Africaine'' expanded to include a publishing house and a bookstore ...

. This autofiction retraces the journey of a woman, Vilhelminma, who leaves Jamaica to settle for love in Niger. The character finds herself confronted with a society that refuses to open up to her, considers her as a foreigner - a “white black”. She also deals with the variations of pain, trauma and bereavement, as the character has to deal with the death of her 16-year-old child. It drew comparisons with the works of Maryse Conde. The following year, she published ''Tina shot me between the eyes and other stories'', a collection of poems and a memoir, with the Senegalese publisher

Amalion Amalion is a multilingual independent academic publishing house based in Dakar, Senegal. History Amalion is an independent pan-African publishing house based in Dakar, created in 2009. Amalion publishes scholarly knowledge from various parts of Af ...

. In it she explores how the self is shaped and transformed by our relationships. She is also a freelance translator and screenwriter. She collaborated with the Cameroonian filmmaker

Jean-Marie Teno Jean-Marie Teno (born 1954) is a Cameroonian film director and filmmaker, "one of Africa's most prolific filmmakers". Life Teno was born in 1954 in Famleng in Bandjoun. He studied audiovisual communication at the University of Valenciennes and ...

in 2010 to write for the film ''Toutes voiles dehors''.

Selected publications

Creative writing

* ''On m'appelle Nina'' (Présence Africaine, 2016) * ''Tina Shot Me Between the Eyes'' (Amalion, 2017)

Academic works

* Alou, Antoinette Tidjani. "Myths of a New World in Édouard Glissant's novels La Lézarde and Le Quatrième siècle." ''Tydskrif vir letterkunde'' 44.2 (2007): 163-187. * Alou, Antoinette Tidjani. "Niger and Sarraounia: One Hundred Years of Forgetting Female Leadership." ''Research in African Literatures'', vol. 40 no. 1, 2009, p. 42-56. * Alou, Antoinette Tidjani, Arinpe Gbekelolu Adejumo, and Asonzeh Ukah. ''Africans and the politics of popular culture''. Vol. 42. University Rochester Press, 2009. * Tidjani Alou, Antoinette. "Ancestors from the East, Spirits from the West. Surviving and Reconfiguring the Exogenous Violence of Global Encounters in the Sahel." ''Journal des africanistes'' 80-1/2 (2010): 75-92. * Tidjani-Alou, Antoinette. “‘Back to Africa, Miss Mattie?’: Autobiographical Notes from Global Africa on Apprehending Texts and Subtexts of Popular Culture.” ''The Global South'', vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 139–53. * Alou, Antoinette Tidjani, and Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan. ''Epistemology, fieldwork, and anthropology''. Springer, 2016. * Alou, Antoinette Tidjani. "Reel Resistance: the Cinema of Jean-Marie Teno." ''Tydskrif vir Letterkunde'' 57.2 (2020): 113-114. * Alou, Antoinette Tidjani. "Sarraounia, love, and the postcolony." ''Tydskrif vir Letterkunde'' 59.3 (2022): 27-34.

References

External links

PROFESSOR ANTOINETTE TIDJANI ALOU: VOICE OF NIGERIEN WOMEN
(profile/interview)
Women from the Nigerien Sahel
(

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

talk)
Writers I Read: In Conversation with Antoinette Tidjani Alou
(interview)
ENTRE LES LIGNES - Niger: Antoinette Tidjani Alou, écrivaine
(reading excerpt in French)
EPISODE 97 WOMAN OF THE MONTH - ANTOINETTE TIDJANI ALOU
(podcast) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tidjani Alou, Antoinette Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Jamaican diaspora Nigerien women writers Nigerien academics Jamaican women writers University of the West Indies alumni Bordeaux Montaigne University alumni Academic staff of Abdou Moumouni University