Tale
Tales of Amadou Koumba
Les Contes d'Amadou Koumba
Birago Diop · 1947
Synopsis
Nineteen tales in which the animals of the bush recur: Leuk the hare, lively and bounding, Bouki the hyena, always grumpy, Golo the monkey, Gayndé the lion, Nièye the elephant, and Kouss the sprite among the spirits. One meets a she-donkey, a mother caiman, the hyena's spear, two co-wives, truth and lie travelling together. Each tale opens at nightfall on a formula and closes on a lesson: loyalty, sharing and humility are worth more there than cunning and self-interest.
Context
The storyteller of the title is presented as the griot of the writer's family, whom he had met during his rounds as a veterinarian; the writer later acknowledged that the tales came from several storytellers and not from just one. He wrote them down in France during the war, and Léon Damas had the book published by Fasquelle in 1947, in the collection Écrivains d'outre-mer. Présence africaine reissued it in the early sixties and has never let it go out of print. A second collection followed in 1958, with a preface by Senghor.
Who it is for
Short tales, in a highly crafted language. The device of the fictional storyteller is explicit from the preamble.
Prizes and reception
Grand Literary Prize of French West Africa in 1950. A selection was translated into English in 1966, then the collection into German in 1998.