Books in English by writers from Gabon are hard to find, so these two are wider picks: books by long-time residents, outsiders who know the place well, folk tales and history with a strong feel for Gabon.
Gabon's own writers are little translated into English, so the books most readers find are by outside visitors, from explorers to missionaries. Written literature from Gabon is mostly in French, the official language, and storytelling has deep oral roots, notably the mvet, the sung epics of the Fang people, accompanied by a stringed instrument of the same name. The English-language accounts show Gabon through outsiders' eyes and carry the attitudes of their time.
Mary Kingsley's Travels in West Africa records her 1890s journey up the Ogooué River and through Fang country. Albert Schweitzer's On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, translated from German, describes setting up his hospital at Lambaréné in the 1910s. Robert Hamill Nassau, an American missionary who lived in Gabon for decades, gathered forest folk tales in Where Animals Talk: West African Folk Lore Stories.
By long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well, or folk tales, poetry and history with a strong feel for Gabon.
Schweitzer describes setting up his hospital at Lambaréné on the Ogooué, and the illnesses, villages and daily life around it in the 1910s.
Folk tales gathered in Gabon's forest communities show how people there understood animals, cunning and moral order.
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