|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
The complete poems of Leopold Sedar Senghor, possibly Africa's most
famous poet, are offered in translation for the first time in this
bilingual edition. The book, representing the culmination of a
lifetime of work, includes ""Lost Poems"", a collection of
Senghor's earliest work. Senghor's poetry contrasts the lushness
and wonder of Africa's past with the alienation and loss associated
with assimilation into European culture. Co-founder of the
negritude literary movement, Senghor is concerned that ways be
provided for African and European cultures to enrich each other
while preserving their own cultural identities. His poetry, alive
with sensual imagery, reclaims his ancestral heritage and
celebrates African culture. He writes with an awareness of his
readers, preparing them to receive his culture and its values. With
emotional power, he draws the reader deep into his world. In his
introduction, translator Melvin Dixon places Senghor's writing in a
historical perspective by relating it to his political inolvement.
Dixon also elaborates on the ways in which the poems chronicle
Senghor's own development as an intellectual, particularly on his
struggles with issues of self and cultural identity. Dixon's
translation preserves the integrity of Senghor's work by retaining,
in the original, words and expressions unique to Senghor's African
French, expressions whose meaning would be compromised in
translation.
Frobenius' pivotal works on African culture represented a landmark
in ethnography. His writings, when discovered by young African
intellectuals in the early 1900s, reverberated through the
community of Africans in search of cultural legitimacy. Frobenius
was credited with giving Black Africa back its soul and its
identity in the early part of the last century.His contributions
and observations laid the groundwork for the concept of negritude,
advanced by Leopold Sedar Senghor, who would later serve as
president of Senegal - an expression engendered by Frobenius' work
that developed hand in hand with the self-determination of the
Harlem Renaissance.This collection was originally published in
Germany and edited by Eike Haverlund, the 1971 recipient of the
Haile Selassie prize for Ethiopian studies.
Leopold Sedar Senghor was not only president of the Republic of
Senegal from 1960 to 1981, he is also Africa's most famous poet. A
cofounder of the Negritude cultural movement, he is recognized as
one of the most significant figures in African literature. This
bilingual edition of Senghor's complete poems made his work
available for the first time to English-speaking audiences. His
poetry, alive with sensual imagery, contrasts the lushness and
wonder of Africa's past with the alienation and loss associated
with assimilation into European culture. Translator Melvin Dixon
places Senghor's writing in historical persepctive by relating it
to both his political involvement and his intellectual
development.
Tales of Kamanda Vol. 1 by Kama Sywor Kamanda; 41 enchanting tales
by Africa's greatest story teller.Kama Sywor Kamanda has produced a
dozen anthologies of poetry, several hundred stories, four novels
and three plays. The imagery in his stories comes from African
traditions but mixes the fantastic and the real, conjuring up
memorable pictures of sunlight, dark forests, beautiful princess
and fearful monsters. Born in the Congo, he published his first
collection of stories in 1967 when he was 15. He helped create the
Union of Congolese Writers but fled Mobutu's Congo in 1977. He was
the founding president of the African Association of Writers of
which Leopold Sedar Senghor was the honorary president.His works
have been translated into many languages and he has earned many
prizes, including the Black Africa Grand Prize for Literature, the
Paul Verlaine Prize and the Theophile Gautier prize from the
Academie francaise. In 2005, the International Council for
Francophone Studies conferred upon him the prestigious
Maurice-Cagnon Certificate of Honour, for his unique contribution
to world literature in French.B OOKS OF AFRICA is also publishing
children's editions of two of his stories, "Amana, the child who
was a god" and "Prince Muntu". Published in collaboration with
Editions DAGAN, Paris
|
|