Tales of East Africa

Tales

by Jamilla Okubo (Illustrator), Chronicle Books

Tales of East Africa is a collection of 22 traditional tales from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Welcome to a world of magical adventure—a place where a boy spares the life of a fearsome monster, a flock of doves brings a girl back from the dead, and a hare wreaks havoc among all the other animals.

Translated and transcribed by folklorists and anthropologists in the early 20th century, these stories evoke the distinctive beauty and irresistible humor of East African folklore.

• The tales come alive alongside bold, contemporary art in this special illustrated edition.
• Each story transports readers to an enthralling world.
• Part of the popular Tales series, featuring Tales of Japan, Celtic Tales, and Tales of India

Tales of East Africa will enthrall fans of fairytales and captivate those interested in East Africa's rich history and culture.

Readers will encounter mischievous animals, plucky heroes and heroines, and monsters, and artist Jamilla Okubo pairs each tale with a bold and vibrant illustration.

• A visually gorgeous book that will be at home on the shelf or on the coffee table.
• A perfect gift for fairy tale and folklore lovers, fans of East African culture, people of East African ancestry, collectors of illustrated classics, adults and teens alike, and bibliophiles
• Add it to the collection of books like The Girl Who Married a Lion: and Other Tales from Africa by Alexander McCall Smith, Favorite African Folktales by Nelson Mandela, and Indaba My Children: African Folktales by Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa

Genres: Mythology, Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, Folklore, Classics, Anthologies

176 pages, Hardcover

Published March 10, 2020

About the author

Jamilla Okubo is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the intricacies of belonging to an American, Kenyan, and Trinidadian identity. Through combining figurative painting, pattern design, and fashion, Jamilla Okubo(b. Clinton, NC) uses the body as both a narrative instrument and primary tool of communication. Her layered experience as a North Carolina-born, Washington, D.C. bred, being a daughter of the Diaspora informs her practice, as does her background in Fashion and Design, which she began exploring at Parsons School of Design where she received her BFA. She is deliberate and articulate in her compositions referring to an emotional language, influenced by memories, lived experience, and the desire to stage the figures in meaningful moments to evoke a sense of nostalgia and intimate recollection of memory. The development of Okubo work has grown gradually out of an unparalleled devotion to color, the black figure, and space, and the creation of harmony.

Okubo has participated in various group exhibitions, most recently at The House of Fine Arts in London, The Southampton Arts Center, and Mehari Sequar Gallery.

Reviews

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This stunning collection features twenty-two short stories from across East Africa. Each comes with its own full-page illustration and the colours are as rich as the flavour of the stories, throughout. The tales are split into four distinct sections:

Part One - Tricksters
This first section featured seven short stories, some of which were no more than a page and a half in length. Each story featured a variety of animals and the various ways they had tricked humans or each other for their own gain. I enjoyed the sly twist of these tales, even if it was often obvious what they were to be. I also appreciated how the end paragraph provided a fantastical explanation for how each of these twists was responsible for a facet of the natural world, such as how tortoise and turtle look the same but one resides in water.

Part Two - Monsters and Magic
This second section featured four stories of slightly longer length. I enjoyed them less without any clever concluding twists but did appreciate the abundance of mythological beasts it introduced, that I had never before heard of. My favourite here was the final and longest of the stories, titled 'Mkaaah Jeechonee, the Boy Hunter'.

Part Three - Justice
This third section featured five stories, with the second, 'Haamdaanee', being the longest featured in this collection so far. These stories seemed to feature more humans, instead of animals or beasts as in the former sections, and I enjoyed learning of the culture of the places these stemmed from as well as the moral endings each contained.

Part Four - Lost and Found
This final section featured six stories and, like section one, each was only a page or so long. I think these were the ones I preferred as the message offered was to the point, but a fantastical twist was still also always delivered.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing that sticks out to me about Tales of East Africa is that while it's a fascinating retelling of the tales with some gorgeous illustrations, the most important aspect of the book is found in its sources. That being, that the stories were translated in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This may seem arbitrary, but if one remembers how much people translating stories, especially from English speaking countries, distorted reality in that period to justify calling different cultures savages. Thus, it makes me doubt the validity of some of these stories and see this as an interesting reflection of this mentality that probably stripped a lot of the intentions away.

However, I have already read many of those stories earlier and sadly haven't stumbled across any stories that would probably be more accurate, which is what I was looking for. Thus, I cannot in good faith recommend this book to an audience looking for the authentic retelling of East African tales, but as an interesting view of how colonial powers have potentially distorted reality.

[Sabin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was impressed by Joseph Campbell in the documentary The Power of Myth (which I listened to in a format very similar to current podcasts – 6 one-hour interviews with a theme of their own) and then I also listened to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he talks about the monomyth, the idea that the myths of all civilizations can be made to fit into a few common archetypes. Fun fact: George Lucas was a fan of Campbell, and the original Star Wars trilogy follows such an archetypal "hero's journey."

Now, those somewhat closer to anthropology will point out to me that his interpretations truncate the original accounts to make them look alike, that the idea of ​​archetypes smacks of Jung, and that he didn't do much fieldwork, instead using the accounts of various anthropologists to build his concepts (so second and third hand to the source material - I hope he credited them, since I don’t remember anyone making such accusations). I get it. Thereupon my choice of book.

What appears in this book is second-hand material, collected by various anthropologists and folklorists and brought here together under a few common themes. Problem is, I just wasn't prepared for a scale of values ​​completely alien to modern sensibilities, like revenge stories, women treated like goods, or even worse, like a curse, and a pervasive lack of trust between people. Interestingly, no chapter deals with morality. We have Tricksters, Monsters and magic, Justice, and the last chapter is Lost and found. The stories grow in complexity and the society depicted also grows in complexity, from the personified animals of the early parts to the stratified society, under tribal/clan chiefs all the way up to the sultans, of the later stories.

A very interesting aspect is that in the absence of justice, whose main role is to give value to human interactions, language is purely functional. What is said, what is declared, cannot have any truth value, but is only a means used to achieve a goal. What we call lying or cheating is one of the means used by the characters, like the strength of arms or other physical characteristics, to achieve their goal: to eat, to get rich, to defend their family or wealth. Coming back to it, justice, in these tales, describes exchanges of all kinds: what a character receives as a ransom from the one who killed a relative or what is the punishment for cruelty to animals. There are no instances of regret or remorse or shame. Everything happens, almost nothing is experienced.

I was a little scared by these tales, honestly. I was also puzzled and now I find myself to be a bit more interested in morality. I also have a better understanding of what Joseph Campbell’s critics have pointed out. You can create a hero’s journey from some of them, but it’s not really that universal archetype that Cambell had me believe. The hero doesn’t turn into a monster and subsequently gets punished for it in Campbell’s tale.

Unrelated to what I said above, I just want to mention that the author is in fact the one who made the illustrations at the beginning of each story. Born in the USA, with Kenyan and Trinidadian roots, in her works she combines human or animal silhouettes in hard, black strokes or colors from an earthy palette, with areas covered by more or less traditional motifs, but definitely with African roots. The result impressed me. It is easily recognized as African art, even very close to stereotypical African art, but the combinations are very fresh.

[SeirenAthena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining and interesting collection of East African folktales. I’m planning on reading folklore and myths from every continent (except for Antarctica… unless?) and I enjoyed making my way through these.

I do believe there were some issues in my translation/copy but this was a very cool experience nonetheless. I’m about seventy pages into the 800-page tome of Calvino’s Italian Folktales which I’m adoring as well and I’ll be starting on some Chinese tales soon too. Best for nighttime reading! Reading folktales is arguably the highlight of my day-to-day life.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

tales of East Africa is a pleasant and accessible collection of short tales from the East African region, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. The stories are grouped in 4 themes; tricksters, justice, lost and found, monsters and magic and vary in length from 2 to 19 pages. Readers not familiar with African names and certain objects such as gourds, should not be deterred to pick up this bundle of stories as the core universality of the morals and plots of the stories supplant any cultural barriers.

The authorship of this bundle of stories is tricky and complicated. Jamilla Okubo presents herself as the illustrator ( great and soothing work ) but she has selected these stories from various ethnographic publications from the early 20th century, rewording them to make them more accessible for a wider audience. But, the anthropologists who wrote these down can't claim authorship either because they recorded what was told to them. So wherever the person who told the anthropologist the story was recorded, Okubo made sure to mention it and yet... were these the authors? Folk tales are such a wondrous thing as inevitable you run into the wall of obscurity; who told the story the first time? Who really is the author?

Jamilla Okubo adds that she, as an Afro American, used these stories to get in touch with her African and in particular Kenyan roots. An admirable enough attempt, I would have been interested to have read an afterword by her on why she chose these stories in particular or what it meant for her to add them, make illustrations and have the bundle published. I am a bit saddened though to read "We have included not only the country that now encompasses the region where the story was recorded but also the name of the tribe or culture to which the story teller belonged, whenever possible. Off course I am not saddened by wanting to specify a stories origins but I am saddened to see tribe used. Tribe is an awful word from an historical and anthropological point. I won't go into deep depths but frankly why do we keep on calling peoples with different language, culture and identity; tribes just because they are African? tribes is nothing more then a ploy used by colonizer to put African peoples and cultures on a lower rung then so called civilized peoples. I have seen it used to describe both highly centralized farmers communities as well as semi nomad egalitarian herdsmen cultures, people whose only common factor was that they were African peoples.

Tribe is however still a term used today in both Kenya and Tanzania, in Kenya tribe has been in use as a legal term and politic mobilizer while in Tanzania Nyerere famously said "for the (Tanzanian) nation to live, the tribes must die." But both stem from the same infamous legacy of colonial administration that puts African communities and identities on a lower rung then "modern" nations. In contrast, would anyone call the Scotchmen and Corsican tribal for opposing the French and British national identity? That is why tribe is such an ugly word not to be used beyond the confines of colonial administration and specific political contexts such as contemporary Kenyan political discourse. It should not and never be used in context of describing African communities, cultures and peoples as it is a hollow term that in its core only means backwardness. Which if you read these stories and compare them to tales of Europe, Asia and Middle east, you will find them as universal and based on moral lessons or quirky fable logic as those from the rest of the "non tribal" world.

[Jodie Steer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Similarly to the other collections of tales in this series, Tales of East Africa contains a series of short morality stories and beautiful illustrations. I found the majority of these to be enjoyable however the message behind each story was very similar. My main issue with this collection was the portrayal of women in some of tales as lacking agency and being traded for livestock. There was a distinct lack of any representation of female protagonists or stories of women going on quests of their own. Unfortunately this means that I can’t give this any higher rating than two stars as I feel that there is a phallocentric bias which the curator of this collection has not made enough effort to counteract or prevent.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent little stories/myths from East Africa, in a beautiful book. Very short stories, as with many folktales they have much missing context, I would have appreciated a few more notes or explanations for some of the stories but most of the interest is in the stories themselves, with little way of knowing where or why a story is going in the direction it's going.

[Darnell]

Some morality tales like you'd find anywhere, a few stories that are delightfully different, and some real shaggy dog stories. I thought the last just came with the territory, but the final notes reveal these were curated from larger collections, so I'm baffled by a few of the choices.

Good for what it is, but I don't know how to rate traditional folk tales.

[Stronach · Rating 4 out of 5]

My knowledge of African religion, culture, myth, and folklore is, to put it kindly, rather bare-boned. So, it was nice to find something short and simple to serve as a starting point. This book features tales from Eastern Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda) and are grouped in broad categories based on the plot or moral (e.g. tricksters, monsters, lost and found, etc).
It was interesting to find reoccurring elements and themes in the stories, and it was surprising to see how the morals (if there was one to be had) skewed from my Anglo/Western expectations. Except for the stories involving the Rabbit. Those reminded me of the Br'er Rabbit Tales vhs I watched all the time (made by Family Home Entertainment, not the Disney one) which, in hindsight, were obviously inspired by the African-American tales, which were themselves derived from their homeland.
So, anyways, a short book that serves as a good starting point to start learning more about East African culture.

[The Smol Moth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sultan's big cat: *is literally killing people *
The sultan: Some people just aren't cat people 😔

Anyway, I really liked this book! My favorite story was the one with the gazelle, even though it had a bit of a sad ending, although I also liked the one with the doves who protect the girl from her abusive mother.

[Dominic Piacentini · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable collection of short stories from East African oral storytelling traditions. An array of characters, human and non-human, fill this morally complex landscape, where one personal slight against another may carry lasting and severe repercussions and where worlds are constructed through action.

“Haamdaanee” is in many ways the most memorable of the bunch, being both the longest story and also the centerpiece of the book. In it, Haamdaanee, a man with little else but millet to his name obtains a most-impressively diplomatic Gazelle who negotiates on behalf of Haamdaanee a wife, a kingdom, and the power of a sultan. In newfound luxury, though, Haamdaanee neglects the gazelle to the detriment of his station.

The moral sounds simple enough, but each story is filled with tricksters, unexpected second chances, and comeuppances that trouble any singular interpretation.

“If this story is good, the goodness belongs to all; if it is bad, the badness belongs only to him who told it.”

[Eduardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If this story is good, the goodness belongs to all; if it is bad, the badness belongs only to him who told it.”
—

This was a gift from Laura!

I am not familiar at all with east African folk stories; I know about some west African stories, such as Anansi, but not so much these! So it’s a new experience. As the cover proclaims, there are stories here from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and they’re categorized in the book itself by type–tricksters, monsters, magic, that sort of thing.

Some of these felt a little familiar–not so much in that I’d heard them before, because I hadn’t. But if you’ve read enough folk stories from all over, these things feel familiar. There are also bits that don’t feel so familiar, and while it doesn’t _usually_ weird me out too much, I was a little surprised by some of the turns in the collection.

It’s a good book if you’re even mildly curious about the topic of stories from around the world, or specifically about east African culture, it’s a good book to pick up. And the stories aren’t that long, so it’s a quick read! Great fun.

[Cleo Pau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tales of East Africa e o carte de basme culese la inceputul secolului XX(!!!) din Kenia, Tanzania (una peste alta pe harta) si Uganda (aflata in vestul Keniei).

E impartita in 4 capitole, dintre care primul, cu farsori, nu m-a convins. Povesti pe care sunt sigura ca le-am mai citit in alte variatiuni, prin alte carti. Apoi am inceput sa simt tot mai acut ca sunt in Africa, atat prin animalele exotice care isi fac aparitia, cat si prin organizarea diferita a familiei. Barbatii isi tot iau neveste, si aici se pune intrebarea daca nu cumva asta a fost urmarea unei rate a mortalitatii mult mai ridicata la barbati. Ca altfel cum de nu se terminau fetele disponibile.

Mi-au placut ultimele capitole . Povestile sunt un pic bantuitoare. Extrem de multe au parti comune cu povesti pe care le-am mai citit. Banuiesc ca destule au influente arabe si e normal sa trezeasca remniscente din o mie si una de nopti!

Trebuie sa ma aplec mai mult asupra unuia dintre basme. Exista povestile alea tip cu baiatul cel sarac, care se indragosteste de fata imparatului, care n-ar da-o unui calic si atunci pe baiat il ajuta o fiinta careia ii facuse baiatul un bine inainte si il trimite la casa unui zmeu si-l invata cum sa-l invinga si apoi baiatul isi insuseste bogatiile zmeului si palatul lui si ii poate arata imparatului ca e destul de instarit si traieste cu fata fericit pana la adanci batraneti. Daca n-or mai trai si azi. Povestea asta o au si kenienii, numai ca... Aici baiatul sarac e ajutat fara sa fi facut o fapta buna, iar apoi se dovedeste tot mai hain la suflet si se poarta tot mai urat cu fiinta care il ajutase, iar in final pierde tot ce dobandise. De unde, cum si de ce apar modificarile astea? 🤔

Alte aspecte neobisnuite:
- Intr-o poveste feciorul de imparat pleaca la vanatoare cu pusca!!! Basmele de pe plaiurile noastre dateaza dinainte de a se inventa praful de pusca. Ma intreb daca si asta e adaptata la istorisire dupa o poveste care avea arcuri si sulite.
- Exista foarte multa neincredere in ceilalti oameni. Nu intr-o singura poveste, ci in multe si in unele merge pana la sfatul ca personajul sa nu se increada niciodata niciodata in alti oameni.
- Fetele dintr-o familie sunt o marfa, nici macar ca oricare alta, ci una de care vrei sa scapi. 🙁

[Zach]

This is a truly wonderful collection of tales. Though barely scratching the surface of literature from East Africa, readers easily get the impression there is much more to enjoy.


These tales are layered with symbols & motifs that connect with the monomyth Joseph Campbell (et al) have shared, and they allow readers sacred moments of reflection & transformation -- no matter where you're at on the journey.


Perhaps my favorite tale upon my first reading is "The Monkey, the Shark, and the Washerman's Donkey." As the tale begins with a monkey who lives on a mkooyoo tree on "the margin of the sea," readers know this tale will cross realms and offer transformation -- and we are not let down. It is too delightful for me to summarize, so just read it. :) 


Chronicle Books has done an outstanding job with the edition -- gorgeous color, margins, paper, and a book ribbon while Jamilla Okubo's art work is superb. 

[Julius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Auf zwischen zwei und neunzehn Seiten werden ostafrikanische Geschichten erzählt: häufig Fabeln, teilweise mit Menschen, immer aber ist die Nähe zur natürlichen Umwelt spürbar. Leider gibt es weder Vor- noch Nachwort, in dem die Herausgeberin begründet, warum sie sich für die gegebene Auswahl und Kategorisierung entschieden hat.

Insgesamt ist es schwierig die Feinheiten einer gesamten geographischen Moral herauszudestillieren, geschweige denn die Unterschiede zwischen unterschiedlichen Ethnien der Region, die über banale Regeln des Zusammenlebens hinausgehen.

Das Buch ist eine schöne, gebundene Ausgabe mit ganzseitigen, farblichen Illustrationen für jede Geschichte. Diese sind nett zu lesen, eine Aggregation traue ich mir allerdings nicht zu.

[Lukáš Zorád · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nádherne ilustrovaná kniha v ktorej sa dobre listuje. Niektoré príbehy sú nápadne podobné tým, ktoré poznáme z Európskeho priestoru, najmä tie Tanzánske. Napríklad príbeh o Haamdaanee pripomínal Kocúra v čižmách, akurát namiesto kocúra tu vystupovala gazela a namiesto čarodejníka musela poraziť/oklamať sedemhlavého hada. Asi by bolo zaujímavé pátrať po tom, ktorý príbeh vznikol skôr, z ktorého príbehu je ktorý odvodený a podobne. Tipujem, že tie východoafrické mohli predchádzať tým európskym. Iné príbehy zase boli akoby úplne z iného vesmíru, najmä tie z Ugandy a Kene. Konkrétne kenské boli úplne bizarné. Natoľko, že niektoré pasáže som čítal repetetívne viac krát, aby som sa usistil, že naozaj. Vcelku zážitok.

[Nic · Rating 2 out of 5]

The illustrations are gorgeous, but the book simply did not work for our family. I was hoping to add some diversity to our folklore unit as almost all of the suggested folktales were from Asia, but all of the folktales in this collection were far too dark in subject and tone.

Almost every story included death, if not murder, and several included cannibalism. Children and women were almost always mistreated in the stories. Definitely not a good fit for my sensitive kids, but would be a good fit for fans of trickster tales or those with a higher threshold for traditional folktales with scary or unhappy plots.

[ina]

- no rating. as most collections, this one was also a mixed bunch
- might end up removing from ‘read’ shelf
- favorite story was Haamdaanee, a tale from Tanzania. or ‘the ungrateful beggar’ as I would call it. the story has elements familiar to European tales, such as the old couple asking for more and more from the fish and the various reiterations of Puss in Boots. ending was touching but satisfying

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories culled from various collections that are in the public domain, arranged and illustrated in a very appealing storybook. I could not stop myself from devouring the tales in just one afternoon. Especially the story that resembled a longer and richer Puss 'n' Boots; that alone was worth it. Okubo and I must have similar taste as I enjoyed almost all that she selected.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a charming compilation. The illustrations are beautifully rendered and the tales vary in theme, whether of tricksters, justice, or origin. I will draw from this collection if I teach World Mythology again.

[TimetoFangirl]

While I'm a big fan of mythology, I wasn't overly familiar with the folklore of eastern Africa, so I was excited to read this. The stories were interesting and I loved the illustrations, but I didn't really like the writing style, hence the 3 star rating.

[Kathrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection and learning more about East African culture.

[Anaide · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is cool to learn about tales from differetn cultures. I enjoyed myself, even though sometimes the tales were brutal.

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and beautifully illustrated

A wonderful intro to African stories. Certainly makes one appreciate storytelling and the historical legacy of this region of the continent