Democratic Republic of the Congo / All works
Poetry
Kasala, chant héroïque luba
Not translated into English
Clémentine Nzuji · 1974
Synopsis
The book collects, edits and translates into French kasala, clan songs of the Luba of Kasai, and offers a study of them. The kasala extols at length the living and dead members of a clan, declaims their deeds and recites the names of the ancestors; it is sung at the departure for war, at the clearing of a field, at festivals and at funerals. The singer, man or woman, learns it from a master or among the mourners. The author analyses its social function and its poetic qualities.
Context
The book appeared in 1974 from the Presses universitaires du Zaïre, in Lubumbashi, in two hundred and fifty pages, with a preface by the linguist Leo Stappers. The author had published a collection entitled Kasala et autres poèmes in 1969. In 1975, she summarised the essential features of the genre in the Cahiers d'études africaines, based on verses recorded in 1970 from a Luba singer in Kinshasa. The kasala had already been the subject of an edition by Patrice Mufuta in the Classiques africains series, from Julliard, in 1969.
Who it is for
A scholarly study accompanied by the songs in Luba and in French; it is addressed to readers curious about oral literature.
Prizes and reception
The Kinshasa daily Le Potentiel hailed her in 2004 as a grande dame of Congolese letters, whose work is appreciated throughout the world.