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Educated to become an engineer, Camara Laye had a productive career as a writer despite political difficulties. Born in 1928 in Guinea while the country was still under French rule, Laye left his village for a French education in Conakry, the capital. He eventually was awarded an engineering scholarship and left for France in 1947. These contrasts between village life and city life, and then between African culture and European culture, profoundly affected Laye. He decided to write about the past he missed, the result being his first book, The Dark Child. He was married the same year and wrote his second book the following year. He worked for the government for a while, but in 1966 was exiled from Guinea because of the political opinions in his third book. In 1970, his wife was arrested (for being his wife) when she returned to Guinea to visit her ailing mother. Laye stopped his political writings, his next, and last, book being of a different type and not published until 1978. Laye died in Senegal in 1980.