"They say that the eldest of the chief's daughters..." So begins a tale from the Basotho, unfolded by the meager light of a dung fire that burns smokily behind the reed screen sheltering the entrance of the hut. The old ones of the tribe wait until dark before telling their stories, for everyone knows horns will grow from the head of one who tells a story during daylight hours. Tales from the Basotho abounds with elements familiar to folk narrative. The heroes and heroines are the chiefs and their wives, their sons and their daughters. Fantastic creatures frequent the narratives. exhibiting their awful powers. Rustic peace and beauty pervade the stories, as Minnie Postma amply demonstrates in her versions of the tales. Something fearful may be occurring—the dreaded Koeoko pulling the only son of the chief under water—but, at the same time, girls with babies tied to their backs are searching for edible bulbs in the veld, and an old woman dreams in the gentle sunlight in front of the huts. These tales from the Basotho are for entertainment only. There is a tabu against telling tales while the sun shines, because daylight hours must be saved for work. The telling itself is the· reason the story exists, for the audience is already aware of the outcome of each tale. As Wm. Hugh Jansen emphasizes in his foreword, "text" and "context" are often easily interpreted and made accessible in a translation, but Tales from the Basotho is ultimately successful for its rendering of "texture." And texture is doubly hard to convey when the telling itself is of primary importance. Minnie Postma and Susie McDermid have transferred the art of the Basotho raconteur onto the printed page. All the simple, understandable formulas, exclamations, and repetitions used so skillfully by the native storyteller are present. Rhythm is an important element in the tales, and a word, a phrase, even a whole paragraph will be repeated until the rhythm satisfies the storyteller, in tum increasing the appreciation of the listeners.

The African continent is home to a fascinating and strong tradition of myth, due in part to the long history of human habitation in Africa; the diversity of its geography, flora, and fauna; and the variety of its cultural beliefs. African Mythology A to Z is a readable reference to the deities, places, events, animals, beliefs, and other subjects that appear in the myths of various African peoples. For the first time, this edition features full-color photographs and illustrations.Coverage includes:

African Myths and Legends is a spellbinding, fascinating collection of myths and legends to enliven the imagination of young readers. No-one is entirely sure whether these legends are fact or fiction, but that is where the magic lies! Each story is accompanied by snippets of information highlighted by the story. Vividly told and illustrated, the book sustains the intrigue of storytelling that has been passed on – often by word of mouth – from generation to generation. Illustrated in magnificent colour by Gina Daniel and Angus McBride, African Myths and Legends weaves fantasy and magic, and is also informative and educated.

Fact and fiction meet at the boundaries, the betwixt and between where transformations occur. This is the area of ambiguity where fiction and fact become endowed with meaning, and this is the area—where ambiguity, irony, and metaphor join forces—that Harold Scheub exposes in all its nuanced and evocative complexity in The Poem in the Story. In a career devoted to exploring the art of the African storyteller, Scheub has conducted some of the most interesting and provocative investigations into nonverbal aspects of storytelling, the complex relationship between artist and audience, and, most dramatically, the role played by poetry in storytelling. This book is his most daring effort yet, an unconventional work that searches out what makes a story artistically engaging and emotionally evocative, the metaphorical center that Scheub calls "the poem in the story." Drawing on extensive fieldwork in southern Africa and decades of experience as a researcher and teacher, Scheub develops an original approach—a blend of field notes, diary entries, photographs, and texts of stories and poems—that guides readers into a new way of viewing, even experiencing, meaning in a story. Though this work is largely focused on African storytelling, its universal applications emerge when Scheub brings the work of storytellers as different as Shakespeare and Faulkner into the discussion.