BABA WAGUÉ DIAKITÉ is an award-winning artist, ceramicist, writer and storyteller. His book The Hunterman and the Crocodile was named a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. The Magic Gourd (Africana Book Awards Honor Book) and The Hatseller and the Monkeys (Aesop Prize) both received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. I Lost My Tooth in Africa, written by his daughter Penda Diakité and illustrated by Wagué, won the Africana Book Award for Best Book for Young Children. Diakité is also the author/illustrator of Mee-Ann and the Magic Serpent, and he is the illustrator of Jamari’s Drum (by Eboni Bynum and Roland Jackson) and The Pot of Wisdom (by Adwoa Badoe), all Groundwood titles.

He is the founder and director of the Ko-Falen Cultural Center in Bamako, Mali, an organization that promotes cultural, artistic and educational exchanges between people of the US and Mali through art workshops, dance, music and ceremony. He is married to Portland artist Ronna Neuenschwander and divides his time between Bamako and Portland, Oregon.