Isabelle Boni-Claverie
| Isabelle Boni-Claverie | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Ivory Coast |
| Nationality | French, Ivorian |
| Occupation | Author, screenwriter, film director |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Notable work | Too Black to Be French? (documentary, 2015), Pour la Nuit (short film, 2004), La Grande Dévoreuse (novel, 2000) |
| Website | boniclaverie.com |
Isabelle Boni-Claverie(/ˈɪzəˌbɛl ˈboʊni-Claverie/) is an author, screenwriter, and film director born in the Ivory Coast. She moved to Switzerland when she was a few months old, then to France, but mostly grew up in Paris.
She is the granddaughter of Alphonse Boni, a French magistrate from 1939 to 1959 during the colonisation of Ivory Coast. After the independence of Ivory Coast, Alphonse Boni became Chief Justice of the country.
Isabelle Boni-Claverie studied French modern Literature and Art History. After graduating from the Sorbonne, she entered the Parisian film school La Fémis where she graduated in 2000 with a specialization in screenwriting.
At the age of 17, Isabelle Boni-Claverie launched her writing career with the novel, La Grande Dévoreuse (The Great Devourer). Set in Abidjan, La Grande Dévoreuse tells the struggle of two teenagers to fulfill their dreams. It received an award at Le Prix du Jeune Ecrivain de Langue Française and was published in a collective book, Villes d’exil, by Le Monde Editions. Ten years later it was republished in the Ivory Coast by Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes (NEI).
She was later asked by the art curator, Simon Njami, to write for Planète Jeunes, a francophone monthly youth magazine. She collaborated with Planète Jeunes in 1993. She published a story about Abidjan’s youth and many articles about culture.
In 1994, Simon Njami asked her to collaborate with Revue Noire, a magazine dedicated to contemporary African art. Isabelle Boni-Claverie was still a student when she started a six-year collaboration with Revue Noire. She was in charge of the cinema section.
From 1999 to 2005 she collaborated with Afrique Magazine where she created and ran the column Ma nuit avec (My night with), a series of reviews where she would spend the evening with a celebrity.
Boni-Claverie currently writes a column both in the French language Le Huffington Post and in the Nouvel Obs where she regularly publishes about what it means to be black in France, diversity, and inclusion.
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