Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. 1 Introduction: The Land of the Blood-Boiling Sun 1
5. Part 1. Literature and “Sahelity”
6. 2 The Origins of the Fulani 11
7. 3 The Word Beyond the Word: Pacéré’s Theory of Talking Drums 27
8. 4 Saglego, or Drum Poem (for the Sahel) 45
9. 5 Bendrology in Question 73
10. 6 Animism, Syncretism, and Hardness: The Epic of Askia Mohammed 87
11. Part 2. Race, Politics, and Writing in the Sahel Zone
12. 7 Tuareg (Tamazight) Literature and Resistance: The Case of Hawad 101
13. 8 Anarchy’s Delirious Trek: A Tuareg Epic 113
14. 9 The Black and the White: Race and Oral Poetry in Mauritania 127
15. 10 Literature as a Form of Intellectual Ascent: The Writings of Patrick G. Ilboudo 139
16. 11 Norbert Zongo: The Committed Writer 151
17. 12 The Mobutuization of Burkina Faso 157
18. Part 3. Rethinking Sahelian Travel Writing
19. 13 Writing Timbuktu: Park’s Hat, Laing’s Hand 175
20. 14 The Bello-Clapperton Exchange: The Sokoto Jihad and the Transatlantic Slave Trade 201
21. 15 Wanderings: Bamako, Moscow, Delhi 229
22. Part 4. Conclusion
23. 16 Reflections in Conclusion: Bridging the Shore 251
24. Works Cited 253
25. The Contributors 265
26. Index 267
27. About the Book 273