Peter Wasamba – författare

As a team of upcoming and established scholars from Kenya, Ethiopia and Belgium, we propose this book with oral folktales accompanied by strong visuals. Through performative learning procedures the book invites young people to meaningfully engage with living traditions of oral storytelling. The book aims to:1) (re-)value the educational potential of popular storytelling in dealing with crisis situations;2) (re)connect adolescent audiences with oral literatures;As the interest in oral literatures is on the decline, especially among adolescents in Africa and elsewhere, we see a real need in offering folktales that are attractive and relevant to youthful audiences.The book features 11 oral narratives in 5 languages from Kenya and Ethiopia, accompanied by high-quality images that will speak to young people. Each chapter starts with a full transcription of the story in the original language, followed by a well-written and attractive translation to English. The visual section highlights the narrative’s features in different manners, after which metadata on the narrative are offered, explaining the performance context, background of the narrator and audience. The final section of each chapter consists of a profound analysis with full educational guidelines for teachers/trainers to engage discussion with (African) youth.

Contemporary Oral Literature Fieldwork is based on rich research experience dating back to the 1990s. The book is written against the backdrop of Africa�s confusion with regard to the place of oral literature in the face of the rest of the world, where oral literature exists in conjunction with new literary forms. Wasamba argues that the oral and the written literatures are complementary literary forms. Throughout the work, the author underscores the universal dimension of oral literature as he demonstrates its particular attributes.