Skip to main content
University of California Press

The Mwindo Epic from the Banyanga

by Daniel Biebuyck (Editor), Kahombo C. Mateene (Editor)
Paperback eBook
Price: $14.95 / £12.99
Publication Date: Jan 2021
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 168
ISBN: 9780520384637
Trim Size: 5 x 7.75
Series:
Read an Excerpt(opens in new window)
Recommend to your Library (PDF)(opens in new window)Rights and Permissions

About the Book

A dynamic translation of the timeless African epic.

The feats of the hero Mwindo are glorified in this epic work, sung and narrated in a Bantu language and acted out by a member of the Nyanga tribe in the remote forest regions of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Beautifully structured and richly poetic, the epic is in prose form, interspersed with song and proverbs in verse. As an example of the classic tradition of oral folk literature, the tale provides profound insights into the social structure, values, and cosmology of this African people.

About the Author

Daniel Biebuyck was H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Anthropology and the Humanities at the University of Delaware.

Kahombo C. Mateene was Head of the Division of Language Policy of the Organization of African Unity / Center for Linguistic and Historical Studies by Oral Tradition.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Nyanga
Nyanga Oral Literature
The Narrator, Mr. Shé-Kári¸si¸ Candi Rureke
The Mwindo Epic
The System of Transcription
Notes About the Translation

The Mwindo Epic

Index

Reviews

“The richness of content and the variety of literary forms of this epic are quite amazing…. It is a macrocosm of Nyanga life and culture…. A classic of African oral literature.”—Research in African Literatures

“This book is a must for students of literature about Africa.”—Jan Vansina, American Anthropologist

“A work of art in its own right, in which the Africanist, the literary critic, and the general reader will all find pleasure and profit.”—Africa