{"id":22,"date":"2025-05-24T16:20:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T14:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barnabelaye.com\/en\/?page_id=22"},"modified":"2025-05-24T19:54:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T17:54:23","slug":"biographie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/barnabelaye.com\/en\/biographie\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barnab\u00e9 Laye<\/strong> was born in 1941 in Porto-Novo (Benin). Doctor at the Piti\u00e9-Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re Hospital in Paris. He succeeds in juggling his literary and medical vocations. \u00ab I am a doctor by day and writer by night. I think both sides of myself cohabitate well. But I must confess that it\u2019s the doctor who nourishes the writer, who supports him like one supports a dancer\u2026 The writer sometimes capricious, he is unhappy, he dreams of the day when he\u2019ll finally be free to devote himself entirely to his passion \u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barnab\u00e9 Laye<\/strong> talks about the genesis of his literary career: \u00ab After reading the novel, Cry, the Beloved Country<\/em> by South African Alan Paton, I closed the book, overwhelmed, as if I had just had an epiphany\u2026 I told to myself- that\u2019s what needs to be done, writing in a simple and uncluttered language, letting the music of the words carry the ardor of the feelings, translating the fragility of the existences and the distress at the heart of the human being. I was fifteen. Soon after, I told my father I wanted to be a writer. Embarrassed, he replied : Son, this is not a job fit for a Black man, that\u2019s not a job for us<\/em>. I always obeyed my father that I consider to be one the most intelligent men I have ever met. So, I chose to become a doctor like my maternal uncle that my father admired and held up as an example. When I announced my choice, my father whispered in my ear, like a confidence : and your uncle, he changes car every two years and he married the most beautiful woman in the country !<\/em> before leaving with a laugh. Besides, for some reasons that I could not explain, I always thought that medicine was a very\u2026 poetic profession. \u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barnab\u00e9 Laye<\/strong> hopes he has kept the wonder that the teenage boy he was felt, facing the beauty of the language when it expresses disarray but also deep-rooted hope and an irrepressible need for love, justice and truth.
French writer Andr\u00e9 Maurois said: \u00ab The place for a writer to innovate is in his way of looking at life \u00bb. Barnab\u00e9 Laye\u2019s look, through all his books, is a look full of compassion and fraternity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barnab\u00e9 Laye<\/strong> died in Paris on April 3, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awards and Honors :<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n