African Folktales at Internet Archive: The Black Cloth

For Week 12, I am focusing on stories from western Africa, and I am really excited about the book for today: The Black Cloth: A Collection of African Folktales by Bernard Dadié, one of Africa's most important literary figures in the 20th century, and the book is just a click away at the Internet Archive.

Bernard Binlin Dadié was a novelist and playwright of Côte d'Ivoire; he was born in 1916 and died just two years ago, in 2019; that's right, he was over 100 years old when he died. You can read about his remarkable life and career at Wikipedia: Dadié.

This book was published as Le Pagne Noise: Contes Africains in 1955; the English translation by Karen Hatch was published in 1987, and Hatch also translated Dadié's novel Climbié. The English translation also has a foreword by Es'kia Mphahlele, South African writer and educator; you can read about his remarkable career at Wikipedia. 

The book is a blend of traditional folklore and three tales that are the product of Dadié's own creation: The Black Cloth (title story of the collection), The Mirror of Dearth, and The Man Who Wanted to Be King. The dominant character who ties the whole collection together is Ananzè, Spider; ten of the stories in the book are about this famous trickster. Be sure to see the translator's introduction for comments about the different folktale genres represented in the book. including dilemma tales, and also her comments about the themes that recur throughout the book, along with the distinctively oral features of Dadié's style.

Dadié wrote the poem "Dry Your Tears, Africa" which you can read about here: “Seche Tes Pleurs” de Bernard Binlin Dadié,  and which was featured in the score for the movie Amistad.

This important book even has its own Wikipedia article: The Black Cloth where you can learn more about this book and about Dadié... and the book itself is just a click away at the Internet Archive.

The Black Cloth:

A Collection of African Folktales

by Bernard Dadié