Born in 1900 in French West Africa, Malian writer Amadou Hampate Ba was one of the towering figures in the literature of twentieth-century Francophone Africa. In Amkoullel, the Fula Boy, Ba tells in striking detail the story of his youth, which was set against the aftermath of war between the Fula and Toucouleur peoples and the installation of French colonialism. A master storyteller, Ba recounts pivotal moments of his life, and the lives of his powerful and large family, from his first encounter with the white commandant through the torturous imprisonment of his stepfather and to his forced attendance at French school. He also charts a larger story of life prior to and at the height of French colonialism: interethnic conflicts, the clash between colonial schools and Islamic education, and the central role indigenous African intermediaries and interpreters played in the functioning of the colonial administration. Engrossing and novelistic, Amkoullel, the Fula Boy is an unparalleled rendering of an individual and society under transition as they face the upheavals of colonialism.

Born in 1900 in French West Africa, Malian writer Amadou Hampate Ba was one of the towering figures in the literature of twentieth-century Francophone Africa. In Amkoullel, the Fula Boy, Ba tells in striking detail the story of his youth, which was set against the aftermath of war between the Fula and Toucouleur peoples and the installation of French colonialism. A master storyteller, Ba recounts pivotal moments of his life, and the lives of his powerful and large family, from his first encounter with the white commandant through the torturous imprisonment of his stepfather and to his forced attendance at French school. He also charts a larger story of life prior to and at the height of French colonialism: interethnic conflicts, the clash between colonial schools and Islamic education, and the central role indigenous African intermediaries and interpreters played in the functioning of the colonial administration. Engrossing and novelistic, Amkoullel, the Fula Boy is an unparalleled rendering of an individual and society under transition as they face the upheavals of colonialism.

The Fortunes of Wangrin
Amadou Hampate Ba note special accents on the "e" in Hampate and "a" Ba not correctly reproduced here see ms.]
Translated by Aina Pavolini Taylor with an Introduction by F. Abiola Irele

Winner of the Grand Prix Litteraire de l Afrique Noire

"I think this is perhaps the best African novel on colonialism and it draws very richly on various modes of oral literature." Ralph Austen, University of Chicago

"It is a wonderful introduction to colonial rule as experienced by Africans, and in particular, to the rule of African middlemen." Martin A. Klein, University of Toronto

"The Fortunes of Wangrin is not only a wonderful novel by one of Africa s most renowned intellectuals, it is also literally filled with information about French colonization and its impact on traditional African societies, African resistance and collaboration to colonization, the impact of French education in Africa, and a host of other subjects of interest." Francois Manchuelle, New York University

Wangrin is a rogue and an operator, hustling both the colonial French and his own people. He is funny, outrageous, corrupt, traditional, and memorable. Ba s book bridges the chasm between oral and written literature. The stories about Wangrin are drawn from oral sources, but in the hands of this gifted writer these materials become transformed through the power of artistic imagination and license.

The Fortunes of Wangrin is a classic in Franchophone African literature.

Amadou Hampate Ba was a distinguished Malian poet and scholar of African oral tradition and precolonial history.

Aina Pavolini Taylor is an independent translator with wide experience of Africa, now living and working in Italy.

F. Abiola Irele is a professor in the Department of Black Studies at Ohio State University."