Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali
by D.T. Niane
Mali's founding myth, told by griots for 700 years.
you want to understand West African civilization through its own heroic tradition rather than through archaeology or colonial records
⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡
Not sold directly on this site. Support indie bookstores with a new copy, or go sustainable with a used one.
Supports independent bookstores
Secondhand & sustainable
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.
Sundiata Keita was a boy who couldn't walk, mocked and exiled, who returned to defeat the sorcerer king Soumaoro Kanté and found the Mali Empire in the 13th century. His story has been told by griots — hereditary oral historians — for seven hundred years. Niane transcribed it from the griot Djeli Mamoudou Kouyaté in the 1960s. The West African equivalent of the Iliad — a founding dispatch from inside a civilization that the world still barely knows existed.
WHERE THIS BOOK LIVES
- Setting
- Mali • West Africa
- Voice
- Written by a Malian author
- Themes
- True Cost of Empire
