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Mr Hassoum Ceesay FBA

Hassoum Ceesay's research interests are African colonial and post-colonial history, especially through biographies of women and political leaders, chiefs in British colonial rule, and heritage conservation and interpretation, to bring to the centre those assigned to the margins of Gambian history.
Fellow type
International Fellow
Year elected
2026
Honours
Order of The Republic of The Gambia (ORG)
Subjects
Archaeology
Sections
Early Modern History to 1850

Summary

Hassoum Ceesay is a leading Gambian historian, museum curator, biographer, and culture administrator. His articles and book reviews have also appeared in leading history journals such as 'Journal of Mande Studies', 'Africa: Journal of The International African Institute', 'SOAS Bulletin, African Economic History Journal', 'Tarikh, Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies', 'African Studies Review' etc.

A graduate of The Gambia Teachers’ College (1991), St. Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada (1999), University of Nairobi, Kenya (2003) and University of The Gambia (2007), he has worked with The Gambia Government since 1988 as teacher and civil servant. He has served on several Government bodies such as The Gambia Boundary Commission; Chairman of The Gambia National Library Board, and Vice President of Writers Association of The Gambia.

Since 1999, he has worked at the National Centre for Arts and Culture in Banjul, which he now leads as Director General. He has led The Gambia accede to 1970 UNESCO Convention on Prohibition and Preventing of Illicit Import of Cultural Property(2024) and the UNESCO 2001 Convention on Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage(2025). He currently leads  a UNESCO project for The Gambia’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage(ICH) under the UNESCO 2003 Convention.

He has written 8 books on various aspects of Gambian history, including: 'Kunta Kinteh Island and the Transatlantic Slave Trade in The Gambia' (Fulladu Publishers, 2018); 'Gambian Women: An Introductory History' (The Gambia National Museum, 2007); 'Patriots: Profiles of Eminent Gambians' (Global Hands Publishing, Leicester, 2018), and contributed a chapter on Guinea Bissau and its narco-state status (Hurst and Company, 2016). He has also contributed encyclopedia entries on 16 Gambian and African historical personalities for The Dictionary of African Biography (Oxford University Press, 2013) and has written research paper on timber trafficking in Guinea Bissau and  Southern Casamance(Senegal) published in ENACT Africa,  2018.

Current Research: 'The Shortest History of Africa' Hassoum Ceesay with Toby Green (Old Street Publishing, 2027).

Current post

National Centre for Arts and Culture, The Gambia Director General

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