Soussou Language
Cultural Resources on Guinea for Soussou Learners
Websites on History of Guinea:
Web Guinée – Website
Web Guinée is one of the best online resources for everything that one might want to know about Guinea. It has numerous books, articles, interviews, and other sources that have been put online by the curators of the website. As a rich repository of all things about Guinean history, this is an essential starting point for anyone interested in learning more about Guinea’s history. It covers all periods, including extensive documentation of Guinea during the period of numerous empires that expanded through its borders such as the empire of Mali, the Toucouleur Empire, and the Imamates of Fouta Djallon and Wassoulou. It has documents that cover extensively the period of colonization, and later the post-independence history as well. The website is largely a reproduction of various sources, including academic articles, (auto)biographies, news stories, books, and more. Much of it is also reproductions of texts that have long gone out of print or are difficult to find online. As a note, much of the website is in French.
Diaspora Guinéenne: Historie de la Guinée (KabaBachir.com)
http://www.kababachir.com/histoire-de-la-guinee/
For an excellent relatively brief but comprehensive history of Guinea, this is an essential website (note: it is in French only). Rather than a repository of historical documents, which could serve as a range of sources to researchers or other interested parties, this website provides simply the overview of many major periods of Guinean history. Well written, concise, and thorough, this is an excellent history that gives the essential facts that any student of Guinean languages such as Soussou must know. It includes, importantly, the arrival of Soussou people in Guinea, and how their populations and language ended up in the Basse Côte. Some of the demographic information would also be important for language students as well to understand the spread and range of linguistic diversity.
Books on Guinean History:
Adamolekun, ’Ladipo. Sekou Toure’s Guinea: An Experiment in Nation Building. First Edition. London: New York: Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1976.
The most important English-language book on Guinea is arguably Lapido Adamolekun’s book Sekou Toure’s Guinea. Although it is somewhat of a dated text, having been published in 1976, it is essential reading for all students of Guinea and Guinean history. Published eighteen years after independence, it is the first major English-language study of postcolonial Guinea. It sheds light on everything from the political functioning of the nation, to economic programs, to critical points around language education–a hallmark of the governing of the First Republic. For English-language learners of Soussou, this book is a must read to understand the previous political situation of Guinea.
Camara, Mohamed Saliou. Political History of Guinea since World War Two. Illustrated edition. New York: Peter Lang, 2014.
In terms of overviews of the long history of Guinea since the post-war period up until the present, one of the most critical interventions in the English-language literature is Mohamed Saliou Camara’s Political History of Guinea since World War Two. This is a comprehensive overview that takes the reader up until the presidency of former president Alpha Conde. It is a comprehensive look of the overall history, filled with intimate details from someone who was previously a professor and a journalist in Guinea, with deep personal experience of the region. Not ending with the fall of the First Republic, but rather extending the time period to the then-present, Camara’s book provides an interesting foil against the experience of the presidency of Sékou Touré to give readers good insight into the issues and failings of the Second Republic, which followed a military coup after Touré’s death in 1984. In order to have a full understanding of the state of Guinea more broadly, this book is a necessary read.
Suret-Canale, Jean. La République de Guinée. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1970.
Jean Suret-Canale was a well-respected French Marxist historian, whose deep engagement with Guinean history, and critical perspective on nation building during the post-independence period garnered him positive reception during Guinea’s First Republic. La République de Guinée is an extensive study that not only focuses on the period of the First Republic, but, more than other books previously mentioned, gives a thorough and extensive treatment of the period of European colonization as well (Camara covers this, although not nearly with the same level of detail). This is an essential book for those who read French to learn about the history of Guinea.
News Websites on Guinea (Contemporary):
GuineeNews.org – Local News Website (French)
GuineeNews is possibly the best-known local news reporting website in Guinea. Based out of Conakry, it employs a large team of reporters, and covers subjects all over the country as well as international news. It is an essential website to follow to keep up with all goings on in the country, as well as to lean Guinean perspectives on various events.
GuineeMatin.com – Local News Website (French)
GuineeMatin is a well-known local news source. Local reporting is a major occupation in Guinea, so learning about the current news of the country from sources on the ground is very important. Seldom covered or touch upon with regularity by major Western news sources, looking to Guinean media is key for all who are trying to learn more about Guinea, and some current debates going on. Fair warning at the same time as well—there are occasionally some articles that are perhaps less well reviewed than other that make it into the news. However, it is a clear view of many of the ongoing political discussions that are happening on the ground in Guinea.
Radio France Internationale (Subject: Guinea) – International French News Website (French)
Radio France Internationale is a French state-run news media service bearing some similarity to the BBC or Voice of America. Although it does not always publish on Guinea, it often has good reporting on certain key Guinean events. One advantage of this format too is that often it has good interviews with key local non-profit organizations. Additionally, it is in an audio format, making it accessible to people on the go. Sometimes as well there are longer, in depth reports on historical events that, while having a certain pro-French bias, often are quite informative.
