Martial Sinda
Congolese poet and politician (1935–2025)
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Martial Sinda (1935 – 16 July 2025) was a Congolese poet and politician of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI).[1]
Martial Sinda | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Senate of the Republic of the Congo | |
| In office 19 July 1992 – 2 May 1993 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1935 |
| Died | 16 July 2025 (aged 89–90) |
| Party | MCDDI |
| Education | University of Paris |
| Occupation | Poet |
Life and career
Born in Kinkala District in 1935, Sinda completed a writing apprenticeship under Jean Malonga.[2] He won the Grand Prix littéraire de l'Afrique Equatoriale française in 1956, which caused a scandal and was saved from expulsion from French Equatorial Africa by Léopold Sédar Senghor and Paul Chauvet.[3] In 1961, he defended a thesis at the University of Paris on Kimbanguism titled "Le messianisme congolais et ses incidences politiques depuis son apparition jusqu'à l'époque de l'indépendance, 1921-1961".[4] In 1972, he published Le Messianisme congolais et ses incidences politiques, kimbanguisme, matsouanisme, autres mouvements, which won him the Prix Georges-Bruel of the Académie des sciences d'outre-mer. In 1992, he was elected to the Senate for the MCDDI.[5] In August 2011, he received an honorary doctorate from the Université Simon-Kimbangu in Kinshasa.[6]
Martial Sinda died on 16 July 2025.[7]
Publications
- Premier chant du départ (1955)
- Le Messianisme congolais et ses incidences politiques, kimbanguisme, matsouanisme, autres mouvements (1972)
- André Matsoua : fondateur du mouvement de libération du Congo (1977)
- Simon Kimbangu : prophète et martyr zaïrois (1977)
- "L'État africain postcolonial : les forces sociales et les communautés religieuses dans l'État postcolonial en Afrique" (Présence Africaine, 1983)