Véronique TADJO was born in Paris and grew up in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. She has a BA in English from Abidjan University and a doctorate degree in African American Literature and Civilization from the Sorbonne. In 1983, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Howards University in Washington, D.C. and then went on to lecture at Abidjan University. She has travelled extensively in Africa, Europe and America and has lived with her family in Lagos, Nairobi and London.
Tadjo’s work includes two collections of poems, Laterite/Red Earth, which won a literary award and several novels among which The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda which bears witness to the genocide and Queen Pokou: Concerto for a Sacrifice based on an ancient Akan myth. It was awarded the prestigious prize, “Le Grand Prix Littéraired’Afrique Noire” in 2005. Her most recent novel, Far away from my Father is a story set against a backdrop of looming civil strife in Côte d’Ivoire that highlights the tension between tradition and modernity, between faith practices and scientific truth, as well as the deceptive legacy of polygamy. Each of her novels explores the dynamics of an individual’s most intimate relationships and the social contexts that shape them. She is also a writer of children’s literature, an illustrator and a painter. She has facilitated writing workshops in several countries namely in France, Mali, Haiti, Rwanda, South Africa and the Benin Republic.
Her work has been translated into many languages, including English, Swedish, Italian, German, Vietnamese, Xhosa and Afrikaans. She was a judge for The Caine Prize for African writing and for the European Union Literary Prize for South African writing.
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