The Sunjata epic is a foundational oral narrative for Manding populations of West Africa and claims to describe the origins of the famed medieval empire of Mali. It is both a historical source and an artistic creation of West African oral specialists, the griots (jèliw). Despite its importance, the epic is known to Anglophone non-specialists only through a handful of accounts published after 1960. Corpus of Early Accounts of the Sunjata Epic, 1889-1959 presents twenty understudied versions of the epic, recorded during the colonial period, that are not easily accessible. Previously published in French and German colonial periodicals, here these sources are translated into English, each with a scholarly introduction, allowing the reader to appreciate each version's context and purpose.
| ISBN: | 9780197267387 |
| Publication date: | 3rd August 2023 |
| Author: | Stephen Head of Academic Standards Quality, Head of Academic Standards Quality, Lancaster University Bulman |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 410 pages |
| Series: | Fontes Historiae Africanae |
| Genres: |
Oral history Social and cultural anthropology African history |