I have always loved to write. As a child, I was rather quiet. I did not like to talk, but reading and writing were my favorite hobbies. When I was in sixth grade, my French and Latin teacher told the class that I would write someday. I took her remark quite seriously, and when I was in college, I was able to support myself with my writing. By that time, I had added discovering other languages and cultures to my pastimes, probably because I grew up in a multicultural environment, with a Senegalese father and a French mother.

I was born in Paris and my first language is French, but over the years, I have also learned English, German, Italian, Wolof and Mandingo (two languages spoken in West Africa) and lived in Senegal, Gabon, Italy, and New York. Throughout three continents and five countries, my son Sény was my constant companion. He now does graduate studies in computer science, and his world is filled with math formulas, but when he was a little boy, what he enjoyed most were the stories I created for him and narrated in the various languages we spoke. I stopped, as he grew older, and concentrated on writing historical papers and books.

Much of my research is devoted to African history and the culture of people of African origin. When I realized how little many Americans knew about these topics, I felt I had to share what I had learned, not only with adults, but also with younger readers who would hopefully grow up better informed than the previous generations.

I have published several books and articles dealing with Africa as a historian, but one day, as I took my daily stroll in the park--my favorite, new hobby--a story came to my mind. It was the first time since I created tales for my son, so many years ago. I felt a wonderful freedom when I wrote Bintou's Braids. I did not work with real events or people, for a change, so I could make up incidents, characters, include dreams, and end the story any way I wanted. But I also wanted to be true to the spirit and culture of the people that I was writing about, so I drew on my observations and studies.

This is my first book of fiction and I enjoyed creating it immensely. Shane's illustrations are strikingly beautiful, and Bintou has become as real to me as the historical characters I normally write about. The little girls I knew in Senegal inspired me; I love their grace, their politeness, and their curiosity. Their dreams and wishes are theirs, but as I discovered during my stays in diverse lands, they are also those of many other children, across time and oceans. Little Bintous are everywhere.

Sylviane A. Diouf, Ph.D., February 2002