Oral Literature in Africa
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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Publisher Description
Ruth Finnegan’s Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa.
This revised edition makes Finnegan’s ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, "drum language” and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa.
This volume is complemented by original recordings of stories and songs from the Limba country (Sierra Leone), collected by Finnegan during her fieldwork in the late 1960s, which are freely accessible here.
The book is available as a free pdf and ebook download thanks to the generous support of interested readers and organisations, who made donations using the crowd-funding website unglue.it.
Oral Literature in Africa is part of our World Oral Literature Series in conjunction with the World Oral Literature Project.
Customer Reviews
This is the first unglued book
This book, a classic in the field of cultural anthropology, is free thanks to the support of 157 individuals and 2 libraries via the unglue.it website who thought it was worth the trouble.
I particularly enjoyed the chapter on drum languages. When I think about what the world would be like without books, its interesting to analogize the drum languages with the internet, which is enabling decentralized distribution of literature.
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