Georges Condominas

Georges Louis Condominas (29 June 1921, Haiphong – 17 July 2011, Paris) was a renowned cultural anthropologist.

A specialist of South East Asia (his mother had Chinese, Vietnamese and Portuguese roots, his father a French navy officer), he has been described as the ​‘Proust of ethnology’. His field studies of the Mnong people of Vietnam have inspired Francis Ford Coppola for his masterpiece, Apocalypse Now, in particular the final scene of the buffalo sacrifice.

Condominas’ working papers, his personal library and his pictures are preserved at the mediatheque of the Musée du quai Branly, available for scholars and researchers. His audio records are preserved and digitized by the French Research Center for Ethnomusicology (LESC, CNRS, Paris Ouest University).