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National Book Foundation > Author > Baba Badji
Baba Badji is a Senegalese American poet, translator, and researcher. He earned his PhD in Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis. (Photo credit: WUSTL) More about this author >
Ghost Letters creates a ghost mother who becomes a presiding presence in Baba Badji’s first collection of poems. His poetry explores what it means to be Senegalese, American, and Black, as well as the bonds of Black people across the Black diaspora. More about this book >
Baba Badji is a Senegalese American poet, translator, and researcher. He earned his PhD in Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis. He came to America when he was eleven years-old. He currently lives in St. Louis, but his permanent home is Senegal, where his extended family remains, and New York City. Badji’s research and teaching interests center on the links between the various forms of postcolonial studies, theory, and practice, with a particular focus on debates about postcolonial translation theory and Négritude in Anglophone and Francophone cultures. Besides English and French, he is fluent in Wolof, Mending, and Diola, and he calls on these languages in his writing.
(Photo credit: WUSTL)