Traveling down memory lane to confront harsh truths of the past is daunting. To most people avoiding this route is best as it spares one of the emotional weight but for those who perceive it as enlightening, like historian Sylviane Diouf, the embrace is often accompanied with much alacrity.
Winner of several historical awards including the 2007 Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historian Association for her last book, Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship of Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, Diouf unassumingly expresses:
“To be recognized by historians is really validating. It gives credibility when you get an award. But when I talk to people about my book and they comment about how they loved it and what they learned, this is really extraordinary because you feel like you have done something useful.”
Indeed, her research and writing revolve around unearthing various historical facts, a fascination she confesses to have had since childhood.
Diouf elaborates: “For me it’s more like [a] detective story, if you will. You know, trying to piece together clues and stuff and presenting a story that has not been told. When I write history it’s not about people well-known and stuff about nature because it’s been done. I think that as we still look at African history and African diaspora history, most of it has not been told. And so there are plenty of stories that fascinate me that we need to be looking into.”
Born in France to a Senegalese father and French mother, Diouf’s dense French accent douse her words as she delves into her magnetism of history.
While she professes to being intrigued by the past, she did not begin a career as a historian until after three years of work as a journalist for the African Weekly, a publication in France. Although she enjoyed the experience she admits that history, specifically African migration and their human experience, interested her more.
“There’s a lot that has been written on African Americans who were brought here and slave owners, but the experience of Africans is very little,” she remarks.
Unlike many scholars, Diouf works without the assistance of students in the research process for her books. Although many curators spend years writing a book, this adept historian uses less time. She explains:
“For this book, Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship of Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, I really worked on it for nine months between research and writing which was really quick. Because I organize myself in a way where I’d rather work 50 hours a week on a book on top of my job because then it’s really fresh in my mind. I see that when I take my time then I forget what I was doing. I’m not organized that way.”
Diouf is a Curator of Digital Collections and Director of Schomburg – Mellon Humanities Institute at the prestigious Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. She has authored 10 historical books including one fiction, Bintou’s Braids (Chronicle Books, 2001), which was published in the United States, Brazil and France.
As a historian Diouf has commented on PBS documentaries including: This Far by Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys, Prince Among Slaves and History Detectives.
After attaining much success with her last book, she works towards her next project focused on the daily lives of the Maroons in the United States.
Concerning inspiration for her works she proclaims:
“I’m very African-oriented. Meaning that I just want to present Africans as I know they are because I feel that Africans have very very bad press, all over, especially here in the U.S. As an historian I know all those extraordinary stories of ordinary people and I really want to set the record straight.”
She adds: “As an historian I have to be honest and I cannot invent stuff because everything I do has to be footnoted and everything has to be proved. But just the truth is enough. That’s really what I think motivates me.”