The Hare And Baboon And Other Stories

The Hare and Baboon and other Stories is a collection of 7 fables from 7 different countries on the African continent: Nigeria, Togo, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Cameroon, and Cote d'Ivoire. These tales are filled with the warmth of Africa and offer a glimpse into the cultures they are set in. They are filled with talking animals and adventurous quests. They generally include morals that teach us to be better people. Among other things, the stories explain how the tortoise's shell became cracked, and how fire came to earth. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration painted by the artist Thamba Tabvuma.

Shimmer Chinodya, winner of the 1989 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa region) is one of Zimbabwe's foremost fiction writers. This collection of short stories reveals his development as a writer of passionate questioning integrity. The first stories, 'Hoffman Street' and 'The Man who Hanged Himself' capture the bewildered innocence of a child's view of the adult world, where behaviour is often puzzling and contradictory; stories such as 'Going to See Mr B.V.' provide the transition between the world of the adult and that of the child where the latter is required to act for himself in a situation where illusions founder on a narrow reality. 'Among the Dead' and 'Brothers and Sisters' look wryly at the self-conscious, self-centred, desperately serious world of young adulthood while 'Playing your Cards', 'The Waterfall', 'Strays' and 'Bramson' introduce characters for whom ambition, disillusion, and disappointment jostle for attention in a world where differences of class, culture, race and morality come to the fore. Finally, in 'Can we Talk' we conclude with an abrasive, lucid, sinewy voice which explores the nature of estrangement. The charge is desolation. Can we Talk and Other Stories speaks of the unspoken and unsaid. The child who watches but does not understand, the young man who observes but cannot participate, the man who stands outside not sure where his desires and ambitions lead, the older man, estranged by his own choices. 'Can we Talk' is not a question but a statement that insists on being heard, and demands a reassessment of our dreams.

Shimmer Chinodya, winner of the 1989 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa region) is one of Zimbabwe's foremost fiction writers. This collection of short stories reveals his development as a writer of passionate questioning integrity. The first stories, 'Hoffman Street' and 'The Man who Hanged Himself' capture the bewildered innocence of a child's view of the adult world, where behaviour is often puzzling and contradictory; stories such as 'Going to See Mr B.V.' provide the transition between the world of the adult and that of the child where the latter is required to act for himself in a situation where illusions founder on a narrow reality. 'Among the Dead' and 'Brothers and Sisters' look wryly at the self-conscious, self-centred, desperately serious world of young adulthood while 'Playing your Cards', 'The Waterfall', 'Strays' and 'Bramson' introduce characters for whom ambition, disillusion, and disappointment jostle for attention in a world where differences of class, culture, race and morality come to the fore. Finally, in 'Can we Talk' we conclude with an abrasive, lucid, sinewy voice which explores the nature of estrangement. The charge is desolation. Can we Talk and Other Stories speaks of the unspoken and unsaid. The child who watches but does not understand, the young man who observes but cannot participate, the man who stands outside not sure where his desires and ambitions lead, the older man, estranged by his own choices. 'Can we Talk' is not a question but a statement that insists on being heard, and demands a reassessment of our dreams.

A collection of five delightful tales about the sneaky Hare and the trusting and gullible Baboon. These stories are translated into English and offer an insight into the folktales that have been told through the generations in Zimbabwe. With charming illustrations by Sarura Kids, these stories are a delight as well as being tales that teach and advise.

The Hare and Baboon and other Stories is a collection of 7 fables from 7 different countries on the African continent: Nigeria, Togo, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Cameroon, and Cote d'Ivoire. These tales are filled with the warmth of Africa and offer a glimpse into the cultures they are set in. They are filled with talking animals and adventurous quests. They generally include morals that teach us to be better people. Among other things, the stories explain how the tortoise's shell became cracked, and how fire came to earth. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration painted by the artist Thamba Tabvuma.

A retelling of a traditional East African tale in which a clever hare finds a way to outwit the lion that is terrifying all the other grassland animals.

This book is inspired by folktales that my grandmother narrated to me when I was a child. Growing up in rural Zimbabwe, we would sit around the fire in our mud hut after dinner and listen to my grandmothers storytelling long into the night. This book is a collection of different folktales that happened a long time ago, somewhere deep in the forests of Zimbabwe. The folktales sometimes feature some interaction between and among animals and sometimes a combination of animals and humans. The folktales are didactic in nature, thus they often end up depicting important life lessons.

collected and retold by Buchi Offodile Once upon a moonlit night, children gathered elbow to elbow, lying on the ground, while the adults sat near by, drinking and snacking. They listened to the storyteller, who held adult and child alike rapt with animal noises and spooky voices, gesture and song, call and response, until the wick of the palm-oil lamp ran down and the storyteller tired. It wasn’t that the stories themselves were over—no, many more were yet to be told: tales of the ever-scheming tortoise, spider, or hare; tales of spirits tempting children; tales of fate punishing whole villages for their folly, or rewarding them for their perseverance. Though almost all the tales have morals, the most popular characters are the tricksters: the tortoise, the spider, and the hare. The Orphan Girl includes a fascinating introduction exploring the roots of the storytelling tradition in the history and culture of West Africa. History’s boundaries divide this book by nation, from Mauritania into the continent’s interior, to the hinterlands of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and down the Atlantic coast as far as Cameroon. Each country is represented by several stories, a map and brief information. Invariably though, as all of these countries share common origins and cultures, the stories overlap and play off each other. For example, a Ghanaian story featuring Anansi, the spider, is almost the same tale told by the Igbos of Eastern Nigeria starring Mbe Nwaniga, the tortoise.