Tanella Boni

Tanella Suzanne Boni (born 1954) is an Ivorian poet and novelist. Also an academic, she is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Abidjan. Apart from her teaching and research activities, she was the President of the association of writers of the Côte d'Ivoire from 1991 to 1997, and later the organizer of the International Poetry Festival in Abidjan from 1998 to 2002. Tanella Boni was born in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, where she was educated to high-school level, before going on to further university studies in Toulouse, France, and at the University of Paris, obtaining a PhD. She subsequently became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cocody-Abidjan (now the University of Félix Houphouët-Boigny), as well as writing poetry, novels, short stories, criticism, and children's literature. She served as President of the Writers' Association of Côte d'Ivoire from 1991 to 1997 and organized Abidjan's International Poetry Festival from 1998 to 2002. During the political strife in Côte d'Ivoire (from 2002 until 2011) she self-exiled to France. In 2005, she received the Ahmadou Kourouma Prize for her novel Matins de couvre-feu (Mornings after curfew). In 2009, she won the Antonio Viccaro International Poetry Prize. Since 2013, Boni divides her time between Abidjan and Paris. She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.