Manthia Diawara (* 1953 in Mali) lives and works in New York, where he is professor of Comparative Literature and Film at New York University. As a filmmaker, he has directed Négritude—A Dialogue between Soyinka and Senghor (2015), Édouard Glissant: One World in Relation (2009),Maison Tropicale (2008), Who’s Afraid of Ngugi? (2006), Bamako Sigi-kan (2002), Conakry Kas (2003), Diaspora Conversations: from Gorée to Dogon (2000), In Search of Africa (1997), Rouch in Reverse (1995) and, together with Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Sembène: The Making of African Cinema (1994), among others. His publications include African Cinema—New Aesthetic Forms and Policies (with Lydie Diakhate, 2011), We Will not Budge: An African Exile in the World (2003), Black-American Cinema: Aesthetics and spectatorship (1993), African Cinema: Politics and Culture (1992) and In Search of Africa (1998), in addition to many essays produced about film and literature of the African diaspora. In 2008 he curated the film festival African Screens at HKW. Diawara founded the bilingual magazine Black Renaissance / Renaissance Noire, for which he still works as an editor.

Contributions to the 100 Years of Now. Journal: Truth Matters