Angèle Bassolé-Ouédraogo (born 8 February 1967) is an Ivoirian-born

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

. She has won the Trillium Book Award and been nominated for the

Ottawa Book Award Ottawa Book Award and Prix du livre d'Ottawa is a Canadian literary award presented by the City of Ottawa to the best English and French language books written in the previous year by a living author residing in Ottawa.

Biography

She was born in

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, making it the sixth most populous city p ...

, Côte d'Ivoire, and raised in Upper Volta. She was an avid reader as a child, and was encouraged by her local librarian who eventually taught her as his assistant, which allowed her access to more books than she would normally be allowed. She wrote her first poem around the age of 11 to 12, after being influenced by her brother Francis, who would go on to be a well known poet in Côte d'Ivoire. Her first published work was about Nelson Mandela while he was still imprisoned in South Africa, which was published by '' Jeune Afrique'' in France when she was 16. She studied at the

University of Ouagadougou Founded in 1974, the University of Ouagadougou (UO; french: Université de Ouagadougou) is in the area of Dagnöen Nord (pronounced dag-no-en noor) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It was officially renamed in 2015 as l’Université Ouaga 1 Profes ...

and subsequently moved to Canada after she received a grant to do so, receiving a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

from the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottaw ...

and a journalism degree from the

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (UdeM; ; translates to University of Montreal) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte- ...

. She is currently a researcher in

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...

at the University of Ottawa, and is developing a project to bring women's studies to African-based universities. Her 2003 book ''Avec tes mots'' won the Trillium Book Award for French-language poetry, while ''Sahéliennes'' was nominated for the

in 2008 and was her first work to be translated into Portuguese. Between 2009 and 2012, she worked as an advisor in Burkina Faso on equal rights for men and women. She has created her own publishing house in Canada, Éditions Malaïka, which she aims to use to concentrate on African themes.

Bibliography

* * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bassole-Ouedraogo, Angele 1967 births 20th-century Canadian poets 21st-century Canadian poets Black Canadian writers Burkinabé journalists Burkinabé poets Burkinabé women writers Burkinabé women poets Canadian women journalists Canadian women poets Canadian poets in French Franco-Ontarian people Ivorian poets Ivorian women writers Ivorian women poets Journalists from Ontario Living people Writers from Ottawa Université de Montréal alumni University of Ottawa alumni University of Ouagadougou alumni Canadian book editors University of Ottawa faculty 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Black Canadian women Ivorian emigrants to Burkina Faso Canadian women non-fiction writers 21st-century Burkinabé people