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

Canadian Canadians () 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 their being ''C ...

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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

. She has won the

Trillium Book Award The Trillium Book Award ( or ''Prix Trillium'') is an annual literary award presented to writers in Ontario, Canada. It is administered by Ontario Creates, a Crown agency (Ontario), Crown agency of the Government of Ontario, which is overseen by ...

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

Early life

She was born in

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N'ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the largest city and the former capital of Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of the overall population ...

Côte d'Ivoire Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and ...

, 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 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

while he was still imprisoned in South Africa, which was published by ''

Jeune Afrique ''Jeune Afrique'' (English: ''Young Africa'') is a French-language pan-African weekly news magazine, founded in 1960 in Tunis and subsequently published in Paris by Jeune Afrique Media Group. It is the most widely read pan-African magazine. It o ...

'' in France when she was 16.

Education

She studied at the

University of Ouagadougou The University of Ouagadougou (UO; ) is a university located in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Founded in 1974, it was officially renamed in 2015 as l’Université Ouaga 1 Professeur Ki-Zerbo. The UO consists of seven Training and Research Units (UF ...

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

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

from the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

and a journalism degree from the

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (; UdeM; ) 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-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on M ...

. She is currently a researcher in

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

at the University of Ottawa, and is developing a project to bring women's studies to African-based universities.

Career and Recognition

Her 2003 book ''Avec tes mots'' won the

for

French-language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...

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

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bassole-Ouedraogo, Angele 1967 births 20th-century Canadian poets 21st-century Canadian poets Burkinabe journalists Burkinabe poets Burkinabe women writers Burkinabe 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 Poets from Ottawa Université de Montréal alumni University of Ottawa alumni University of Ouagadougou alumni Canadian book editors Academic staff of the University of Ottawa 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Ivorian emigrants to Burkina Faso Canadian women non-fiction writers 21st-century Burkinabe people Black Canadian poets Black Canadian women poets Black Canadian non-fiction writers