Emmanuel Dongala
Emmanuel Boundzéki Dongala is a Congolese chemist and novelist. He was Richard B. Fisher Chair in Natural Sciences at Bard College at Simon's Rock until 2014.
In 1997, he was dean of Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville when war broke out in the Republic of Congo. Bard College president Leon Botstein, who has aided a number of refugee professors, offered him a job teaching chemistry at the American college.
As a chemist, his specialty is stereochemistry and asymmetric synthesis, as well as environmental toxicology.
He is the author of a number of award-winning novels including Johnny Mad Dog and Little Boys Come from the Stars. His work is featured in the Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, and he has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. There is a film based on his book Johnny Mad Dog, a 2008 French-Liberian film directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire and starring Christopher Minie, Daisy Victoria Vandy, Dagbeh Tweh, Barry Chernoh, Mohammed Sesay and Joseph Duo.
He was winner of the 2004 Cezam Prix Littéraire Inter CE for Johnny chien méchant. He published La Sonate à Bridgetower in 2017, based on the true story of the original dedicatee of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, Rodolphe Kreutzer.
