Dictionary of African Biography, Volumes 1-6

Front Cover
In the spirit of The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, American National Biography, and African American National Biography--all three published by Oxford University Press--Dictionary of African Biography is a major biographical dictionary covering the lives and legacies of notable African men and women from all eras and walks of life. This groundbreaking resource tells the full story of the African continent through the lives of its people. The rich history of the African people has been unduly neglected in the scholarly literature, and reliable reference material is in short supply. This trend has begun to change, however, and in recent years many new historical discoveries have been made. Much of this research is designed as a corrective to the long tradition of inadequate treatment by scholars. Although scholarship on Africa is flourishing, very little of this research has yet filtered down into accessible reference works; well designed reference material is essential to promote further scholarly inquiry, learning, and education, and to satisfy increasing interest among nonspecialist audiences. Although there have been some isolated instances of successful biography of Africans, there is no single resource that provides comprehensive coverage. Older reference works focus unevenly on the colonial period, European adventurers, and Egyptian dynasties. There is very little attention given to the full range of African lives, and rarely is the continent treated as a whole. As a result our picture of Africa's history and its people is incomplete. A comprehensive biographical dictionary will greatly increase our understanding of the African continent and have a transformative effect on education and research. As the most wide-reaching reference project on Africa to date, DAB will be a means of codifying the explosion of new research. Entries will be written by contributing scholars from African studies departments the world over. Each entry has been reviewed by the editorial board to insure only reliable, high-quality material is published. DAB contains 2 million words in nearly 2,200 entries, each with bibliography, ranging from 750 to 2,000 words. It will have a comprehensive index. It comprises six volumes, approximately 500 pages each, and is published in a hardcover edition for specialists and libraries.
 

Contents

List of Entries
ix
Preface
xxv
An Introduction
xxix
Executive Editors Note
xlv
Common Abbreviations Used in This Work
xlix
Dictionary of African Biography
li
Places of Birth or Major Involvement
255
Periods of Activity
273
Occupations and Realms of Renown
287
Current Heads of State of African Nations
313
Directory of Contributors
315
General Index
353
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, West Virginia. He received a degree in history from Yale University in 1973 and a Ph.D. from Clare College, which is part of the University of Cambridge in 1979. He is a leading scholar of African-American literature, history, and culture. He began working on the Black Periodical Literature Project, which uncovered lost literary works published in 1800s. He rediscovered what is believed to be the first novel published by an African-American in the United States. He republished the 1859 work by Harriet E. Wilson, entitled Our Nig, in 1983. He has written numerous books including Colored People: A Memoir, A Chronology of African-American History, The Future of the Race, Black Literature and Literary Theory, and The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. In 1991, he became the head of the African-American studies department at Harvard University. He is now the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at the university. He wrote and produced several documentaries including Wonders of the African World, America Beyond the Color Line, and African American Lives. He has also hosted PBS programs such as Wonders of the African World, Black in Latin America, and Finding Your Roots.

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