Sunjata: A New Prose Version

by David Conrad (translator)

"After existing orally for hundreds of years, Sunjata was written down in the 20th century. David Conrad, who recorded a new version of the epic, has now crafted a prose translation that preserves the oral flavor of live performance. The result is a captivating work of literature that will finally give the story of Sunjata its well-deserved place among the great epics of world literature." —Martin Puchner, Byron and Anita Wien Professor of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Genres: Africa, History, School, African Literature

182 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 1, 2016

Reviews

[Corpruga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not an expert in the Sunjata epic tradition, but it is something I wanted to teach in my medieval world literature class, so did a little digging through different editions and it seemed like this one had a good amount of introduction and supplementary material to give my students context. Plus, putting it in prose and focusing largely on Sunjata's narrative without including too many side stories or background passages probably doesn't reflect the oral tradition faithfully, but it DOES resemble the novel format my students are familiar with enough that a novice like me could help guide them through the reading.

Anyway, this was a blast for me. My specialty is in twelfth- to fourteenth-century French, Latin, and English literature, and this is...super not that. I got to learn more about medieval African empires (a tiny little bit, but that's more than I learned before), and watch some performances of the Sunjata epic online, and draw some connections between the text and my discussions with my class about the history of Islam and other national epic traditions' emphasis on family lines and genealogy, and I think my students enjoyed it. We've got a woman who turns into a magical buffalo to get revenge on her brother, rivalries between stepmothers, a bad guy who wears a suit of human skin and has a magical xylophone, another bad guy at the end who turns into a crocodile--it's exciting stuff! I really enjoyed looking at the gender roles and family dynamics, and examining Sunjata's role as a leader and how he accumulates power and followers. So, while I can't say whether this is a better edition of Sunjata than other editions, this translation worked for me and my class. Except for all the people who were disappointed by the final battle between Sumaworo and Sunjata, but even then, I think they still learned some stuff from reading it.

[Johnathan Sorce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I wouldn't rate the story of Sunjata itself as being innately profound, deep, or entertaining. However it has great value for understanding the cultural worldview of the Mande people in Mali and the surrounding areas. It particularly highlights their focus on kinship (within their own unique system of relation) and on magic/sorcery - both things which permeate every aspect of the book.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting story and a valuable look at West African culture, but I feel like this particular rendering could have done with more footnotes and with some of the omitted passages left in. I believe the prior edition, told in verse, was stated to be one-third the length of the original performance, and this edition is shorter still; maybe that's too much abridgment. Then again, maybe a tightly plotted edition is just what we need to get African mythology into the hands of lay readers.

I can't comment on the accuracy of the translation, but Conrad's wording always felt clear and conversational, with any new Mande terms defined and indexed. At the beginning he encourages the reader to imagine him- or herself sitting in a hut listening to the jeliw tell this story, and the straightforward language helped me maintain that immersion.

I would like to revisit Sunjata sometime, either the older verse version or the exhaustively annotated academic edition that Conrad teases in the afterword.

[Paul Guthrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wildly different from the other epics in my course, Sunjata tells the origin story of the united Malian empire and its founder, Sunjata.

Cultural challenging and with a character list like a Marquez novel, I could have used more footnotes.

[Adonror · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really much to see here. It’s just okay, not that entertaining. Very easy to get mixed up with the names of the characters, since this version loves to just randomly call the same character a different name every time he or she is mentioned. Sunjata literally has six different names that he is referred to, and the story just seems to randomly switch between each. Plot is pretty mundane as well. Unless you have to read this for school like I did or have a decent interest in African mythology/culture, I have no idea why you would want to read this.

[Maria Chavez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I didn't understand what was going on half of the time, I had a lot of fun reading it. There were so many new cultural things that the story introduced me to and the aspect of mysticism throughout the text was so interesting. The characters were captivating and it was great to see that women played a larger role than I thought they would.

[Liam Malone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the plot and storyline of the Sunjata are good. This version reads disjointed. It is a very recent translation that perhaps would be better if written as a more polished story. Many side tales are omitted according to annotations before or after each short chapter.

[Krisette Spangler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sunjata is an epic story of the ruler of the Mande people in Africa. It was entertaining, but it wasn't very compelling. I read it with my son who is taking a world lit class at BYU, and I thought it would be fun to read the books on the syllabus along with him.

[Todd Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sunjata is a solid epic, but I found this Conrad edition for be pretty choppy and tough to follow.

[tommie ☭ · Rating 5 out of 5]

a really engaging written narrative of the oral history of sundiata -- i really enjoyed it

[Kylee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool perspective of traveling from Morocco to Mali. But very clear it was an oral story because it was difficult to keep track of what was happening

[Julie McConnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is historically important since it came out of the 13th century. I liked the descriptions of magic being used as a source of power by women and men within this society and how women used magic as a source of power due to their lack of financial independence or the ability to either own or inherit property. The descriptions of women being traded off like cattle, men having multiple wives or wives being sold with special favors and deeds made me feel uncomfortable, but then again, the concept of "kinship" was in place so it was normal to do this. This book made me think a lot about how women are a form of property in this culture but also started to make think how much of this is still true and applicable to this day.

[Syd ⭐️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides more value in cultural understanding, than in actual storytelling.

[Øystein Brekke · Rating 3 out of 5]

An oral epic from Western Africa. This version was written down and translated by Conrad from an oral performance in the 1990s - so this is a still living oral tradition. I really enjoyed the opportunity to read this epic, following Conrad's advice to try and imagine myself seated cross-legged in a hut with others, with the performer in front of me. It was in part a challenging read - the frames of reference are so different, it was sometimes hard to understand why things happened, what the motivations for some actions of some characters was. Still the reason why I only give this edition three stars is the disappointing fact that it's a pretty heavily edited version - Conrad has apparently wanted to publish this shorter version, maybe to make it more accessible? And in doing so, has cut a lot of material he felt was superfluous. So every few pages, the narrative is interrupted by a warning that the following sequence of the performance has been excised, with a sentence or so summarizing what we are missing. To me, this destroyed the flow of the book, and made me wonder what I'm missing.