The new tales of Amadou Koumba - Birago Diop
The 19 tales that make up this collection tell the adventures of characters belonging to the oral literature of West Africa, humans or animals, such as Fari the Donkey, Golo the Monkey, Khary the Hunchbacked Woman, Ngor the Serer, Leuk the Hare, Bouki the Hyena, Maman-Caiman, etc. Each is described in a lively way with emphasis on their qualities and their defects. Each of these stories thus gives food for thought on the behavior of each, inviting, in the manner of fables, to learn life lessons from each misadventure. This work results from the transcription by Birago Diop, of the tales told by the griot Amadou Koumba. They have become classics of West African literature.
188 pages
Author: Birago Diop
Bibliography and information
Guinean franc prices
Nationality: Senegal
Born in: Dakar, 11/12/1906
Died in: Senegal, 11/25/1989
Biography:
Birago Diop was born in 1906 in Senegal. His father died when he was only two months old and he was raised by his mother and older brothers. He grew up in Ouakam where he first attended Koranic school before attending the French municipal school. After obtaining his baccalaureate, he left for France and obtained a veterinary diploma in Toulouse. In 1933, he was appointed veterinary doctor at the Institute of Exotic Veterinary Studies in Paris and he began to frequent the circles of black intellectuals, which were in full swing in those years. This is how he met Senghor, Césaire and Damas, the basic trio of the Negritude movement. He took part in the group's meetings but maintained a certain distance from them, refusing any political commitment for a long time. He then returned to Africa, where he worked as a bush veterinarian in Mali, Ivory Coast, and many West African countries. It was at this time that he collected tales of oral tradition from his mother, his grandmother, and especially from the griot Amadou Koumba. This major encounter led to the publication by Fasquelle editions in 1947 of Contes d'Amadou Koumba (reissued in 1960 by Présence Africaine), then of the collection Les Nouveaux contes d'Amadou Koumba, published in 1958 by Présence Africaine with a preface by Senghor. Although he owes his entry into literary posterity to his tales, Birago Diop began by writing poetry. He devoted himself to it in his youth, as if it were an exercise, observing great formal rigor. His poems are collected in a collection, Leurres et lueurs, published by Présence Africaine in 1960. It contains the poem “Souffles”, which includes the famous lines:
"Those who died never left: They are in the Shadow that lights up
And in the thickening shadow.
The Dead are not under the Earth: They are in the Tree that quivers,
They are in the moaning Wood, They are in the flowing Water, They are in the sleeping Water,
They are in the House, they are in the Crowd: the Dead are not dead"
Upon independence, Birago Diop set up his veterinary practice in Dakar. The last part of his work was devoted to writing his memoirs, which he described as the "novel of his life", collected in different volumes with deliberately allusive titles: La plume raboutée, À rebrousse-gens, or À rebrousse-temps. He died in Dakar on 25 November 1989.
Source: www.presenceafricaine.com