African Folktales

This collection presents ninety-five oral narratives from societies south of the Sahara, selected and retold by the folklorist Roger D. Abrahams. The tales include creation stories, debates meant to be argued over, trickster cycles of hare, tortoise, spider, and other creatures, accounts of heroic or outrageous deeds, and stories about marriage, hunger, and making a living. Abrahams groups them by use-wonder, dispute, entertainment, praise, domestic counsel-rather than by tribe alone. Headnotes and an introduction place the stories in performance. There is no single plot: the book is a cross-section of African storytelling in English prose.

Bound in red paper cover blocked in colour with an image. Yellow endpapers printed in orange with a pattern. Red slipcase.