Rencontre-débat avec Henri LOPES

Henri Lopes was born in 1937 in Léopoldville, the capital of the former Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). He spent his school years in Brazzaville and Bangui and lived in Paris and then Nantes from 1949 to 1965. He completed his studies at the Sorbonne in 1963 and became a professor. He was a member of several African student associations. After returning to Congo, he taught history at the École Normale Supérieure d'Afrique Centrale in Brazzaville until 1966 and then served as Director of Education until 1968. A Congolese writer, politician, and diplomat, he is one of the most prominent figures in modern African literature. In 1972, he was awarded the Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique noire (Grand Literary Prize of Black Africa) by the Association des écrivains de langue française (Association of French-Language Writers) for his book Tribaliques. Since 1981, he has worked for UNESCO, where he served as Assistant Director-General for Culture and External Relations from 1982 to 1998. In October 1998, he was appointed Ambassador of the Republic of Congo to France. In 1993, the French Academy awarded him the Grand Prix de la Francophonie; that same year, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris XII, and in 2002, from the University of Quebec.