Senegalese novelist and director Sembene dies at 84

DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegalese novelist and film director Ousmane Sembene died at home overnight aged 84, state radio in the west African country reported on Sunday.

The son of a fisherman from Senegal's southern Casamance province, Sembene wrote several novels on social themes inspired by his experiences serving in the French army in World War Two, as a railroad worker in West Africa and as a docker in France.

Sembene also made "La Noire de..." (Black Girl), credited as being the first feature film directed by a black sub-Saharan African director. Sembene won France's Jean Vigo film prize in 1966.

The film tells the story of a Senegalese nanny working for a wealthy French couple in Senegal's capital Dakar who moves with the family back to France only to have her hopes of a new life dashed.