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Author
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Comment
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duglis
Registered User
(6/29/03 2:35 pm)
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Recommendation for an African Fairy Tale book?
I know there are lots of collections of African folktales
out there and most are dominated by those trickster tales. Are there any African folklore collections that
would be classified as having a good number of
fairy tales? If so..are there any you folks can recommend?
Again, I'm looking more for African tales that fall into the
fairy tale category rather than trickster tales, dark tales,
raunchy tales, myths, maudlin tales, etc.
Be well all!
Douglas
P.S. I also mean African tales from Africa..not African-American
:)
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duglis
Registered User
(6/29/03 2:37 pm)
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--
Btw..i'll refrain from making any more new topics for a while since i'm new here. Sorry
Douglas :)
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Marc
A Hodge
Registered User
(6/29/03 2:51 pm)
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African Folktale collections
Hey Douglas,
Which particular African culture are you looking to find fairy tales for? Most collections I have found cover a variety of "tribes" from the Akan (Ghana) to the Yoruba tribes. The best book I found is by Rattray, but it is out of print. It deals with Ashanti fokltales. I will look through my collection and see if I can get you some more thorough information
Marc
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duglis
Registered User
(6/29/03 4:09 pm)
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re:African tales
Hi Marc....basically the central and south africa tribes...but west african is fine.
So it doesn't really matter. Just not interested in
East Africa or North Africa.
Doug
Thanks for helping!
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Midori
Unregistered User
(6/30/03 3:58 am)
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African narratives
oh my, why would exclude East African narratives? They are wonderful! And one of the best collections is from the Sudan, "Erotic African Nights" collected by the grand old anthropologist, Leo Froboneius. (you will have to check the library for this book,) One of my most favorite stories "The Monkey Girl" can be found in this collection--along with a lovely little tale called "The Husband's Revenge".
If you are interested in South African narratives look at the work by Harold Scheub--he is the most definitive of the collectors and translators--Harold speaks eight South African languages and has collected well over 10,000 narratives--including three epics (each which took an hour to perform by the same story teller, Mazitatu Zenani). He has a number of both collections and wonderful critical works thry "Story")--he also has an annotated bibliography of collections of African narratives--(again check him out in a university library) a fabulous resource for finding titles of collections of African tales from all over the continent, with a brief description of their contents and the quality of the collected tales.
Also Rev. Callaway (late 19th century) brought out an excellent collection of Zulu narratives called "Nursery Tales, Traditions and Histories of the Zulus." This is a wonderful dual language edition with some of the really great Zulu hero and heroine rites of passage tales. You can find Callaway's translation of the Zulu variant of "The Goose Girl" on Surlalune.
There are quite a few more excellent works--but I am in rush right now. Still..you can't go wrong starting your search with Scheub.
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Midori
Unregistered User
(6/30/03 4:01 am)
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corrections!
aargh! Mazitatu Zenani's epics each took 100 hours to perform (not an hour!). She performed them over many days--almost like Shahrazad--leaving off the story in an exciting moment and then picking it up again the following day!
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Nalo
Registered User
(7/3/03 5:46 pm)
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Re: corrections!
Tks, Midori; stuff to add to my reading list!
-nalo :D
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duglis
Registered User
(7/3/03 9:59 pm)
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re:
Yes..thanks Midori.
Hard to find those books, though :)
Doug
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Midori
Unregistered User
(7/4/03 2:14 pm)
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finding books
Actually Amazon has most of Harold Scheub's work--whether in new or used form. One book I would also recommend is "The World and The Word: Tales and Observations from Xhosa Oral TRaditions." This is a collection of Mazitatu Zenani's stories--really one of the great Xhosa story tellers. Harold has done the translations and its really a fabulous book.
Callaway is alas out of print. But I am sure if you have access to a University Library--even to browse you will find these books. They are classics.
You could also look at collections by Courlander (I think his work was all collected in Dahomey) and the pantheon series of fairy tales has a nice one edited by Abrams (I think that's the author...let me check that) that has stories from all over Africa. The pantheon book should be very easy to get a hold of...
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Anansia
Registered User
(7/5/03 1:25 pm)
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Re: finding books
No-one's mentioned Katherine (Kathleen?) Anrnott's collection - is that cos it's just too obvious? It does have some lovely tales tho - more magical & 'fairy' as well as trickster. Oh no! I can't find my copy to confirm the title etc! But I think it's pretty easy to find - it's in print. BTW it's great to have those other resources pointed out, thanks for the topic.
Edited by: Anansia at: 7/5/03 1:26 pm
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Midori
Unregistered User
(7/6/03 3:50 am)
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Arnott
I agree that its a charming book--but it is intended largely for the juvenile audience, as well as the fact that the stories have all been "retold". while there is nothing really wrong with "retold" stories--I always like reading stories that are good translations and as close to transcriptions of actual performances-- especially since storytelling styles vary rather widely across Africa and single author "retellings" can't help but lose some of the distinctiveness of the styles.
Also while the narratives have versions for younger audiences in the culture--many of those same stories are so much richer and nuanced when performed for audiences of adults--as well as the fact that so many of the stories are not intended at all for children. Scheub's translations of Mrs Zenani's stories are amazing because they so powerful and sophisticated, and filled with social commentary about traditional Zulu life--as well being brillant versions of well known tales--intended for an audience of adults, and especially of older women like herself.
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