He was born into the Dagara people in Dano, Burkina Faso. At age four, Somé was forcefully removed from the Dagara by his father, and taken to a Jesuit boarding school where he was provided with a Western education by priests who were determined to create another black priest.
Somé holds three Master"s degrees and two doctorates from the Sorbonne and Brandeis University.
Somé currently conducts Kontomble initiation and divination retreats and other workshops in the United States and Europe.
Somé writes books and teaches workshops on West African spirituality. He currently lives on the West Coast of the United States. After enduring 16 years of physical and emotional abuse by the priests, he left this school when he was twenty, and returned to the village of his birth.
Elders from the village believed that Somé"s ancestral spirit had withdrawn from his body and that he should undergo a dangerous, month-long initiation process called Baor, an initiation among Dagara males which is believed to reunite soul and body.
Somé says the Dagara believe that each person is born with a destiny, and he or she is given a name that reflects that destiny. Somé says his name, Malidoma, means "he who makes friends with the enemy/stranger." Somé believes it is his destiny to come to Western audiences and promote an understanding between Western and indiginenous cultures.
They have since divorced. Washington Post. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
After living in the west for about 10 years, while completing a Doctor of Philosophy at Brandeis University, Somé went back to Burkina Faso for an arranged marriage to Sobonfu Somé, another member of the Dagara tribe.
