Tale
Contes berbères du Maroc
Not translated into English
Émile Laoust · 1949
Synopsis
Drawn from the dialects of the Beraber and Chleuh group of central Morocco, the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas, the tales are given in Berber text in a first volume, then translated and annotated in the second. The collection opens with animal tales in which the jackal plays the leading role, facing the hedgehog at the bottom of a well, the goat or the woman. The wondertales give a large place to the ogre and the ogress, whom the introduction describes, according to Abdellah Bounfour, as man-eaters of irresistible power, who sniff out the flesh of children.
Context
The collection appeared in Paris, from Larose, in 1949, in two volumes forming volume 50 of the Publications de l'Institut des hautes études marocaines; the first gives the transcribed Berber texts, the second the annotated translations, preceded by an introduction. The Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres received a copy in homage in 1950. Abdellah Bounfour, in the Encyclopédie berbère, still relies on the portrait of the ogre drawn in this introduction and on the ten or so Berber names it lists, while disputing the etymology the author proposes for one of them.
Who it is for
A collection of folk tales in two volumes, one in transcribed Berber, the other in French, with notes; the tales can be read separately.
Prizes and reception
A reference work for recent studies of the Berber wonder tale, cited by the Encyclopédie berbère.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.