AMOI presentation

Côte d'Ivoire Country report, prepared and presented by Assamala Amoi

Page 6

Past I:
from 1976 to 1985, the pioneers era

1975 was declared the International Women's Year and 1976 can be considered as year 1 in women's literature in Côte d'Ivoire. There were - and still are - only two major publishing houses in Abidjan, the economic capital of the country: the "Centre d'Edition et de Diffusion Africain" and the "Nouvelles Editions Africaines" (which later became Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes"). Women had the choice of submitting their manuscripts either to these editors or to publishing houses in France.
In many cases their autobiographies, children's stories, novels, poetry and short stories were new products both for the publishers and the public, as well as new subjects for the press. I have been tempted to call this decade the silent years because women had only just begun to break into men's territory.
1976 saw the first novel published by a woman (Simone Kaya) entitled "Les Danseuses d'Impé-Eya, jeunes filles à Abidjan" INADES.
In 1977 a second novel written by a woman ("Djibô" by Fatou Bolli) was published and in 1978 came the publication of the first children's story, "Papi", NEA, by Jeanne de Cavally (born in 1926).

In total, 15 books were published between 1975 and 1985.

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