Tale
Contes des îles de la lune
Not translated into English
Abdallah Saïd · 1995
Synopsis
A collection of Comorian tales transcribed and translated from Swahili into French for the first time, which the author had heard from his mother. They blend African initiation rites with the ritual of Muslim prayer; all deal with the discovery of death as a necessary stage for the initiate, as well as with friendship and the given word.
Context
Published in December 1995 in Paris by L'Harmattan, in the series “La légende des mondes”, the collection runs to some sixty pages, illustrated by Laurence Poitevin, an art teacher in Saumur; a digital version appeared in 2020. The title takes up the nickname that the back cover gives the Comoros. Soilih Mohamed Soilih, in Africultures in 2002, associates the author with the rereading and rewriting of the archipelago's tales undertaken in the mid-1990s.
Who it is for
For discovering the oral tradition of the Comoros, handed down by a mother to her son who became a teacher.
Prizes and reception
No review has been found; the publisher sees in it a new way into the world of the islands through their oral tradition.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.