African Folktales at Internet Archive: Sunjata

In yesterday's blog post about African epics, I mentioned that the Sunjata epic is the most published in English, and in today's post I want to share four more Sunjata resources that are just a click away at Internet Archive; here they are:

This first book is the latest Penguin edition of the Sunjata epic in English: Sunjata: Gambian Versions of the Mande Epic, including one version by Bamba Suso and and another version by Banna Kanute, both translated by Gordon Innes. This book was originally published as Sunjata: Three Mandinka Versions, and then reissued with an introduction and additional material by Penguin Classics in 1999.

The second book is The Epic of Son-Jara: A West African Tradition by John William Johnson, which provides a translation of the griot Fa-Digi Sisoko's version of the story. (John William Johnson is one of the editors of the University of Indiana Press's "African Epic Series").

The third book is In Search of Sunjata: The Mande Oral Epic as History, Literature and Performance edited by Ralph A. Austen. Rather than presenting the text of the epic, this is a collection of essays. including some essays of great general interest like David Conrad's "Mooning Armies and Mothering Heroes: Female Power in the Mande Epic Tradition."

Finally, here is another comic book version of the story: Sunjata, Warrior King of Mali: A West African Legend by Justine Fontes (and see also the comic book version by Will Eisner in yesterday's blog post). 

So, there you go: a wealth of resources at Internet Archive to learn about the many different versions of this African epic, all just a click away. And I'll be back tomorrow with a post about the Mwindo epic!