Central African Folktales

From the beating heart of Central Africa comes a collection to join East African, West African and Southern African Folktales

Joining the lively collections of folktales from East, West and Southern Africa are selected tales here from Central Africa. Modern national boundaries complicate the origins of the stories still told in the DRC, the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and more but many can be traced back to the Sao civilization of the 6th Century BCE.

Featuring stories such as The Prince Who Insisted on Possessing the Moon, How the Squirrel outwitted the Elephant, and The Water-Fairies save a Child, tales from Central Africa share many aspects of the same themes across the continent because ancient ethnic groups expanded and migrated over many centuries bringing the oral traditions with them. Tales in the Bantu and Banda languages abound, the Sara and Gbaya too, each bringing their unique inflections to the stories of Anansi-style spiders or other tricksters, where in the Congo, the clever water antelope or gazelle is pitched against the brutish or pompous lions, leopards or elephants. A lively and powerful read.

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