Born in 1965 in Boussé, Jean Ouédraogo left Burkina Faso to study Francophone Studies at the University of Georgia in the United States and where he obtained his PhD in 1997. After a first teaching position in Shepherd College in Western Virginia, he joined the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, next to Quebec, where he is now head of the Modern Languages Department. Author of many other studies such as Maryse Condé et Ahmadou Kourouma : Griots de l’indicible (2004) and Cinéma et littérature du Burkina Faso (2005), he has also edited L’Imaginaire d’Ahmadou Kourouma (2010) and Figuration et mémoire dans les cinémas africains (2010) as well as co-edited with Françoise Naudillon, Images et mirages des migrations dans les littératures et cinémas d’Afrique francophone (2011). Since 2010 he has been involved in helping to improve the educational system in Burkina by working – in collaboration with P.A.G.E. and ABPE – at building high schools and libraries.