David Diop was a French-Senegalese poet born in 1927 who expressed his longing for Africa in his poems. He received his primary education in Senegal and secondary education in France. Several of his early poems were published in an important anthology of modern black writing in French. Diop worked as a teacher in Dakar and school principal in Guinea before returning to Senegal in the 1950s to take part in its independence movement. His first book of poems in 1956 called for revolution and criticized European cultural domination in Africa. Diop tragically died in a plane crash in 1960, destroying most of his unpublished work.

1. AFRICAN POETRY
Report of: Levin Jasper A. Agustin

2. David Diop
 was born in Bordeaux, France on July 9,1927
 had his primary education in Senegal, and
then he attended the Lycée Marcelin
Berthelot in Paris duringWorld War II
 At home Diop read the works of Aimé Césaire
and debuted as a poet while still at school.

3.  Several of his poems were published in Léopold
Senghor's famous Anthologie de la nouvelle
poésie nègre et malgache (1948), which became
an important landmark of modern black writing
in French.
 Most of his life Diop lived in France, and he often
expressed his longing to Africa in his poems: "Let
these words of anguish keep time with your /
restless step- / Oh I am lonely so lonely here.."

4.  Diop worked as a teacher in Dakar and a
principal of a secondary school in Kindia,
Guinea.
 In the 1950s Diop returned to Africa to take
part in the rebuilding of Senegal.
 He published several poems in Présence
Africaine, and advocated independence
struggle.

5.  His first book of poems, Coups de pillon (1956),
called for revolution and attacked the
domination of European culture in Africa.
 In his essay 'A Contribution to the debate on
National Poetry' he argued, that poets who use
the language of the conquering nation are
perfect examples of the assimilationist policy,
and submission to western literary fashions is
another form of bastardization.

6.  Diop died on a journey over the Atlantic with
his wife on August 25, 1960; their plane
crashed on returning to France from Dakar.
 Most of his work was destroyed with him,
among them the manuscript of his second
volume of poems. Only the 22 poems that
were published before his death still remain.

7. AFRICA
David Diop