Chronicle
Chroniques et récits du Foûta Djalon
Not translated into English
Anonymous · 1968
Synopsis
This collection brings together chronicles written in Fula by scholars of Fouta Djallon, often anonymous, transcribed and translated from manuscripts mostly held in the Gilbert Vieillard collection in Dakar. They follow the Muslim state from the battle of Talansan, around 1747, in which Karamoko Alfa led the believers against the Fulani who had remained pagan, down to the last almami, through the quarrels of two families who were to alternate in power every two years, the wars against neighbouring peoples and the coronation of the almamis.
Context
Edited and translated by the Guinean linguist Alfâ Ibrâhîm Sow in the series Langues et littératures de l'Afrique noire, these texts follow a first collection of Fouta poets published two years earlier. In his introduction, Sow challenges the idea that the literatures of black Africa are only oral, then describes the old state, its three regions and nine provinces, and a society dominated by the aristocracy “of the sabre and the lance” and that “of the book and the inkwell”. The volume adds a chronology, a long index of proper names, an account of the titles in use and, in an appendix, early pages by the Frenchmen Hecquard and Guebhard.
Who it is for
For those interested in the history of West Africa told by its own scholars, and in literatures written in African languages.
Prizes and reception
Pierre Smith, in L'Homme in 1969, saw in it less literary value than in the previous collection, but a mine of detail about the men and the events.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.