African Oral Literature by Na'Allah, Abdul-Rasheed;

Short description:

This book guides us from the very beginnings of African oral traditions, through the whole range of theories and contexts, and right up to the modern technological age. With key questions, exercises and further reading to guide readers at the end of each chapter, this book is the perfect introduction to the study of African oral literature.

Long description:

African Oral Literature: An Introduction guides us from the very beginnings of African oral traditions, through the whole range of theories and contexts, and right up to the modern technological age.

This comprehensive and engaging textbook covers the key concepts and methodologies behind the history, formation, delivery, and performance of oral literature. Folktales, proverbs, rhetoric, jokes, poetry, and theatre are explored in turn, before looking at compositional techniques, artistry, education, characterisation, and cosmology. The final part of the book investigates the interplay between oral traditions and technology such as social media in the twenty-first century. Drawing on traditional African pedagogy, the book weaves in African metaphors, rhetorical styles and performance modes, aiming for readers to imbibe African orality rhetoric page by page.

With key questions, exercises and further reading helping to guide readers at the end of each chapter, this book is the perfect introduction to the study of African oral literature.

"An essential reading on Africa's rich oral traditions. Na'Allah deserves commendation for producing this accessible yet comprehensive volume on the histories, forms, and politics of oral literature in Africa, replete with the intricacies of the entanglement of old media and the world of social media."

Cajetan Iheka, Professor of English, Yale University, author of Naturalizing Africa (Cambridge UP, 2018), and African Ecomedia (Duke UP, 2021), Director, Whitney Humanities Center, Chair, Council on African Studies, Head, Yale Africa Initiative and Editor-in-Chief of African Studies Review.

"Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah’s African Oral Literature, An Introduction is truly an excellent book; comprehensive in its coverage of different genres of African verbal arts; uses wide-ranging and up-to-date oral data; a good balance between classical and contemporary oral text; coherent across units and focused in each chapter. The careful selection and translation of oral literary data in the book and the meticulous explanation of the material are models of scholarship. The book lives up to the high standards set by Ruth Finnegan in African Oral Literature and Isidore Okpewho in African Oral Literature: Background, Character, and Continuity, which have rarely been matched by any other."

Akintunde Akinyemi, Professor of Yoruba Language and Literature, University of Florida, author, Orature and Yoruba Riddles (Palgave Macmillan, 2015), and Sango in Africa and the African Diaspora (Indiana UP, 2009), President, International Society for the Oral Literatures of Africa (ISOLA) and Coeditor of Yoruba Studies Review. 

"Comprehensive, scholarly, and yet highly accessible to the general reader. This is a compendium of knowledge of oral literature that encompasses the main aspects, forms, and features of this ever-present tradition of literature. The author emphasizes the performative aspects of oral literature that help to define its vivacious nature. Major aspects here have not only “Questions and Comments” but also “Further Reading.” The addition of social media and AI has brought the discussion to a cutting-edge level. This is a book that the oral literature expert, scholar, student, and general reader will read with interest and gusto. AbdulRasheed Na’Allah has put African oral literature into the global spectrum."

Tanure Ojaide, scholar and poet, the Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies, The University of North Carolina, Charlotte, author, Indigeneity, Globalization, and African Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), and Poetry, Performance, and Art (Carolina Academic Press, 2003).

Table of Contents:

Preface  1. Introduction  2. Oral Narratives  3. Oral Poetry  4. Oral Dramatic Performance  5. Compositional Narrative Techniques  6. Oral Apprenticeships  7. Orality and Informal Education  8. Narrative Didacticism  9. Poetry of Engagement  10. African Drama of Total Theatre  11. Oral Literary Characters  12. African Cosmology and Oral Traditions  13. Oral Traditions and Technology  14. African Oral Literature and the Social Media  15. African Oral Literature and Historical Essence  16. African Oral Literature in the Twenty First Century: Platform and Performativity  17. Oral Texts, Writing and Textualities  18. Conclusion: Life and Performance: Life is a performance, every space a performance space!