The UCLA African Studies Center, the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies, the UCLA Department of English and the Friends of English present Veronique Tadjo.

Monday, April 18, 2011
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
James West Alumni Center
Collins Alumni Conference Room
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Véronique Tadjo is a writer, academic, artist and author of books for young people. Born in Paris, she grew up in Abidjan (Côte d´Ivoire) where she attended local schools. She earned a B.A. in English from the University of Abidjan and a doctorate from the Sorbonne, Paris IV, in African American Literature and Civilization. In 1983, she went to Howard University in Washington, D.C. on a Fulbright research scholarship.

In 1979, Tadjo chose to teach English at the Lycée Moderne de Korhogo (secondary school) in the North of Côte d´Ivoire. She subsequently became a lecturer at the English department of the University of Abidjan until 1993 when she took up writing full time.

She began writing and illustrating books for children in 1988 with her first book Lord of the Dance, an African retelling. She was prompted by the desire to contribute to the emergence of literature for children in Africa. Her second book, Mamy Wata and the Monster won the Unicef Award in 1993 and has been translated into eight dual language editions. It is also on the list of the 100 Best African Books of the Century.

In the past few years, she has facilitated workshops in writing and illustrating children´s books in Mali, Benin, Chad, Haiti, Mauritius, French Guyana, Burundi, Rwanda and South Africa.

She has lived in Paris, Lagos, Mexico City, Nairobi and London. She is currently based in Johannesburg where, since 2007, she is the head of French Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.

UCLA African Studies Center310-825-3686
africa@international.ucla.edu

www.international.ucla.edu/africa

Sponsor(s): African Studies Center