Ousmane Sembene
Novelist
Senegalese author and film director whose masterpiece novel, God's Bits of Wood, was inspired by real-life events. His later, politically-themed works include The Last of the Empire and Niiwam and Taaw.
He was drafted into the Senegalese corps of the French Army, and he fought in World War II.
He received a prestigious award at the 1979 Moscow International Film Festival.
The son of a fisherman, he was raised primarily by his maternal grandmother.
He and civil rights leader Dorothy Day were both committed to social change.