Kesso Barry Explained

Kesso Barry (born 1948) is a Guinean autobiographical writer in French.^[1] Her autobiography, dedicated to her daughter, recounts the restrictive gender roles of her traditional upbringing as a member of the Fulani nobility in Guinea-Conakry, and her escape to a Westernised life in Paris.^[2]

Life

Kesso Barry's father was Al Hajj Ibrahima Sory-Dara, almamy of Mamou. She was educated in Koranic and primary schools in Mamou, before continuing education in Conakry and Dakar. She married aged 15, and had two children. In 1966, after divorcing her husband, she moved to Paris. There she pursued a successful career in fashion, married a Frenchman, and wrote her autobiographical novel.^[3]

Works

• Kesso, princesse peuhle [Kesso, a Fulani princess], Paris: Seghers, 1988.

Further reading

• Irène Assiba d'Almeida, 'Kesso Barry's Kesso, or Autobiography as a Subverted Tale', Research in African Literatures Vol. 28, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 66–82
• Edgard Sankara, L’appropriation du masculin dans Kesso, princesse peuhle de Kesso Barry, Itinéraires, No. 1 (2008). Retrieved 24 December 2016. DOI: 10.4000/itineraires.2221

External links

• Kesso Barry Decoster: An author from Fouta-Djalon writing in French

Notes and References

1. Book: Elisabeth Bekers. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong. Henry Louis Gates. Dictionary of African Biography. https://books.google.com/books?id=39JMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA390. 2012. OUP USA. 978-0-19-538207-5. 389–90. Barry, Kesso.
2. Book: Edgard Sankara. Postcolonial Francophone Autobiographies: From Africa to the Antilles. https://books.google.com/books?id=ARRKLeBk6PoC&pg=PA64. 2011. University of Virginia Press. 978-0-8139-3171-5. 74–. Kesso Barry: Autobiography, Masculinity, Ambiguity, and Limited Reception.
3. Book: Thomas O'Toole. Janice E. Baker. Historical Dictionary of Guinea. https://books.google.com/books?id=kIiHwg3Y5u4C&pg=PA25. 2005. Scarecrow Press. 978-0-8108-6545-7. 25. Barry, Kesso Nene (1948–).