What I am reading now: Andrée Blouin: My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria by Aidan Seery (Trinity College Dublin)
A BSA Auto/Biography Study Group Event
6 November 2025 (1700-1800)
Online
About the Event
What I am reading now: Andrée Blouin: My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria by Aidan Seery (Trinity College Dublin)
Abstract
Andree Blouin was born in what is now the Central African Republic [CAR] in 1921 to an African mother and French father. Her life was deeply shaped by her status as a mixed-race girl and then woman. Placed in an orphanage at a young age, she escaped only after 12 years of cruel treatment but having no supports she entered two ill-fated unsuitable marriages. The manner of the death of a child of her second marriage radicalised her and she began to travel around equatorial Africa and joined a number of African independence movements. She spent much of her life working with men, crossing boundaries of race and gender. Her ‘autobiography’ was written in collaboration with Jean MacKellar and published first in English in 1983 but Blouin was displeased by its personal/psychological frame, stating that she wished that it had a more explicitly political nature. The book was out of print for many years but has just been published again in 2025 by Verso. This presentation examines briefly the life of this remarkable woman and discusses some of the issues of the writing of the autobiography.
Registration
- Auto/biography Study Group Member/BSA Member: FREE
- Non-Member: £10
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