Fatou Diome was born in Niodior on the island of the same name in the Sine-Saloum Delta. She was raised by her grandmother and went to school and became passionate about French literature. At the age of 13 she left Niodior and continued her education in M’Bour. Later she moved to Dakar to study at the university, supporting herself by working as a housekeeper. In 1990, she married a Frenchman and moved to France. Rejected by her traditional Serer family and by his family, she divorced two years later. In 1994 Diome moved to Strasbourg to study at the University of Strasbourg. The title of her Ph.D. thesis was Le Voyage, les échanges et la formation dans l’œuvre littéraire et cinématographique de Ousmane Sembène (Voyage, Exchanges, and Education in the Literary and Cinematographic Work of Ousmane Sembène). From 2002 to 2003, Diome was a part-time lecturer at Marc Bloch University, Strasbourg, and at the Institute of Pedagogy of Karlsruhe (Germany). From September 2004 to November 2006, she presented the cultural and literary television program Nuit Blanche (Sleepless night) on the French channel France 3 Alsace.
