Five books that put you in Guinea. Three are by writers from Guinea and set there, starting with The Dark Child and A Dream of Africa. The other two are wider picks: books by long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well.
The Sundiata epic, the medieval story of Mali's founding, is rooted in the Mandinka lands of upper Guinea and is told by griots, the oral historians. D. T. Niane's Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali, translated from French, sets down one griot's telling. Novels and memoirs by Guinean writers return again to colonial rule and to the repression under Sékou Touré, the first president after independence.
Camara Laye's The Dark Child recalls a Malinke boyhood in Kouroussa, from the blacksmith's craft to the move to school in Conakry. His A Dream of Africa is a novel of village life and political repression in the years just after independence. Tierno Monénembo's The King of Kahel is a historical novel about Olivier de Sanderval, a French adventurer who tried to build a kingdom in the Fouta Djallon highlands.
Autobiographical account of a Malinke boyhood in Kouroussa, Upper Guinea, covering family life, village customs, the blacksmith's craft and the move to school in Conakry.
Novel of village life and political repression in Guinea under Sékou Touré, set in the years just after independence.
Historical novel about the French adventurer Olivier de Sanderval and his colonial-era attempt to build a kingdom in the Fouta Djallon highlands.
By long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well, or folk tales, poetry and history with a strong feel for Guinea.
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A griot's telling of the founding of the medieval Mali empire, rooted in the Mandinka lands of upper Guinea and the oral tradition of the Niger–Sankarani region.
Camara Laye's retelling of the Sundiata epic, based on a Malinké griot's recital and rich in Mandinka court life and ritual.
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