Reaching out to one another and beyond
Playwright, poet, novelist (Nder en flammes), essayist (De l’uniforme à la plume), Alioune Badara Beye is the president of Senegal’s Association of Writers, and the International Association of French Language Writers. Head of the general coordination of FESMAN 2009, he is in charge of the Festival’s content via the works of the International Orientation Committee and the commissions, as well as the preparation and organization of FESMAN 2009.

« It is a formidable honour for me, 40 years after the first event, to coordinate this 3rd Festival of Black Arts. You can easily guess my emotion as a man of culture and the enthusiasm with which I intend to accomplish this task.

This Festival crystallises the supreme determination of Africans to reach out to one another and beyond, in order to better integrate within the dynamics of the future, whilst understanding that we can not attain the universal, but can only truly become a part of the global society through a particular history and culture.

By celebrating the black world’s cultural values, through all of its intellectual works, the Festival will thus be a plea on behalf of African dignity. But above all, it will clearly express the power of the black world’s message and the potential of its genius to hearts plagued by doubt and increasingly overcome by disaffection. It is all about organising a space that gives meaning and definition to the millions of souls engaged in the human adventure who need to maximise the potential of all their spiritual resources and symbolic wealth in the singular combat to win back their historic initiative. »