Storytelling In Northern Zambia: Theory, Method, Practice And Other Necessary Fictions
by Robert Cancel /
2013 / English / PDF
5.8 MB Download
Storytelling plays an important part in the vibrant cultural life
of Zambia and in many other communities across Africa. This
innovative book provides a collection and analysis of oral
narrative traditions as practiced by five Bemba-speaking ethnic
groups in Zambia. The integration of newly digitalised audio and
video recordings into the text enables the reader to encounter the
storytellers themselves and hear their narratives. Robert Cancel's
thorough critical interpretation, combined with these newly
digitalised audio and video materials, makes Storytelling in
Northern Zambia a much needed addition to the slender corpus of
African folklore studies that deal with storytelling performance.
Cancel threads his way between the complex demands of African
fieldwork studies, folklore theory, narrative modes, reflexive
description and simple documentation and succeeds in bringing to
the reader a set of performers and their performances that are
vivid, varied and instructive. He illustrates this living narrative
tradition with a wide range of examples, and highlights the social
status of narrators and the complex local identities that are at
play. Cancel's study tells us not only about storytelling but sheds
light on the study of oral literatures throughout Africa and
beyond. Its innovative format, meanwhile, explores new directions
in the integration of primary source material into scholarly texts.
This book is the third volume in the World Oral Literature Series,
developed in conjunction with the World Oral Literature Project.
Storytelling plays an important part in the vibrant cultural life
of Zambia and in many other communities across Africa. This
innovative book provides a collection and analysis of oral
narrative traditions as practiced by five Bemba-speaking ethnic
groups in Zambia. The integration of newly digitalised audio and
video recordings into the text enables the reader to encounter the
storytellers themselves and hear their narratives. Robert Cancel's
thorough critical interpretation, combined with these newly
digitalised audio and video materials, makes Storytelling in
Northern Zambia a much needed addition to the slender corpus of
African folklore studies that deal with storytelling performance.
Cancel threads his way between the complex demands of African
fieldwork studies, folklore theory, narrative modes, reflexive
description and simple documentation and succeeds in bringing to
the reader a set of performers and their performances that are
vivid, varied and instructive. He illustrates this living narrative
tradition with a wide range of examples, and highlights the social
status of narrators and the complex local identities that are at
play. Cancel's study tells us not only about storytelling but sheds
light on the study of oral literatures throughout Africa and
beyond. Its innovative format, meanwhile, explores new directions
in the integration of primary source material into scholarly texts.
This book is the third volume in the World Oral Literature Series,
developed in conjunction with the World Oral Literature Project.
