Bound to Violence

Yambo Ouologuem was a Malian writer born into an aristocratic family. In 1960 he went to Paris, where he studied sociology, philosophy, and English at Lycée Henri-IV, and from 1964 to 1966 he taught at the Lycée de Charenton while studying for a doctorate in sociology at the École Normale Supérieure. His poetry has been anthologized in Poems of Black Africa, edited by Wole Soyinka, and The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, edited by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier. Met with critical acclaim in France, Ouologuem won the Renaudot Prize for his debut novel Bound to Violence.

Ralph Manheim was an American translator of German and French literature who graduated from Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. He translated into English works by Bertolt Brecht, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Günter Grass, Peter Handke, Martin Heidegger, and Hermann Hesse. Manheim received a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a National Book Award, and honors from PEN.

Chérif Keïta is William H. Laird Professor of French and the Liberal Arts at Carleton College. A native of Mali, he has published books and articles on both social and literary problems in contemporary Africa. He is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, with a trilogy of films about some of the founding figures of the African National Congress of South Africa.