Felwine Sarr

Felwine Sarr is a Senegalese academic, musician and writer of novels and cultural essays, born in Sine Saloum, Niodior Arrondissement. He studied Economics and taught this subject at the Gaston Berger University (Senegal) until his move in 2020 as Research Professor in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University in the United States.

Sarr is also a writer and was awarded the Grand Prix of Literary Associations in 2016 (Research Category) for his essay entitled Afrotopia (Philippe Rey, 2016). In this essay, he argues for a conceptual decolonization of knowledge and a reappropriation of the metaphors of their own future by Africans. In a presentation of the English translation of this work, Duke University's Trinity College of Arts and Sciences commented as follows: "Sarr elaborates Africa’s unique philosophies and notions of communal value and economy deeply rooted in its ancient traditions and landscape..." Further, Sarr has published the novels Dahij (2009), 105 Rue Carnot (2011), and Médiations Africaines (2012).

As a musician, he has published three musical compositions: Civilisation ou Barbarie (2000), Les Mots du Récit (2005), and Bassai (2007). With the writers Boubacar Boris Diop and Nafissatou Dia, he cofounded the publishing house Jimsaan. Since 2014, he has been vice-president of the board of directors at OSIWA (The Open Society for West Africa). Felwine Sarr is also editor of the Journal of African Transformation (CODESRIA-UNECA). In October 2016, Sarr and Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe founded the Ateliers de la Pensée (Workshops of Thought), which have brought together intellectuals and artists from Africa and its diaspora in Dakar and Saint-Louis to discuss contemporary problems from an African perspective.

In 2018, Sarr and French art historian Bénédicte Savoy were asked by the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, to investigate the state of African cultural heritage in French state-owned museums. Their report on the restitution of African cultural heritage (in French: Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain) was presented to Macron in November 2018 and published online in an official French version and an English translation.

Sarr is on the TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2021 list.