Tierno Monénembo

Tierno Monénembo (born 1947 in Porédaka, Guinea) is a Francophone Guinean novelist and biochemist who fled the Sékou Touré dictatorship in 1969, studied in Senegal, Ivory Coast, and France—earning a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Lyon—and later taught in Morocco and Algeria before becoming a visiting professor at Middlebury College in 2007. His novels, starting with Les Crapauds-brousse (1979), explore themes of African intellectuals' powerlessness, exile in France, colonial history, and the black diaspora, with notable works including L'Aîné des orphelins (2000, Prix Tropiques) and Le Roi de Kahel (2008, Prix Renaudot). He received the Grand Prix de la Francophonie in 2017.