The Sunjata epic tells the story of the founding of the Mali empire in thirteenth-century West Africa. The epic is part of a living oral tradition that is of paramount everyday, religious, social, and ritual importance for Manding people in Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad. David C. Conrad’s 2004 translation of the Sunjata epic is a standard text for undergraduate classroom use in the United States. This new prose version follows Conrad’s 2004 verse version which, in addition to being available through Hackett Publishing in its own volume, is also included in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, making it widely available to students and faculty.

The twenty-five-page updated introduction introduces the cultural and historical context, explains the role of jeliw (families of bards that perform the epic), summarizes the narrative, and explains the map of the Mande heartland. This edition includes an updated map that corrects errors in previous versions. After the text of the epic there is an epilogue that describes other versions’ endings to the epic and this version’s place in that constellation of variants. The epilogue usefully lists topics not included in this version of the epic and references forthcoming work that will address these topics. After the epic there is a glossary of Manika terms, a list of major characters and their backstories, and a bibliography of suggested reading.

The prose version differs significantly from the 2004 version. The 2004 version, used in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, is in verse and includes a naamu (see below) after each line. The 2016 prose version omits the naamus (Conrad says for ease of reading) but includes many parenthetical asides from the jeli (bard) that are omitted in the 2004 verse version. The verse version is described by Conrad as “literal,” while the prose version uses more idiomatic English.

The text is arranged into thirty-five episodic chapters with titles, and contains many very illustrative footnotes. As in the 2004 version, Conrad omits passages and briefly summarizes the missing sections. He does not explain why these passages are omitted, but one assumes that it is for space or reader comprehension. The new prose version resolves some confusion that arises from the verse version. For example, when I have taught the epic using the 2004 verse version in The Norton Anthology, there is often confusion about the reason for Do Kamissa’s conflict with her brother Donsamogo Diarra, and why Dankaran Tuman is the elder son yet not the hero. This new and expanded version provides answers to those questions, particularly through the commentary of the jeli.

Both of Conrad’s translations of the Sunjata epic are created from one performance by the jeli Tassey Conde, a member of a prominent family of jeliw. Conrad notes that many jeliw accompany themselves on the nkoni, the kora, or the bala but implies that Tassey Conde does not in this particular performance, when he notes that naamu-sayers accompanied Conde in his performances in his home village. As Conrad points out, “A naamu-sayer is a secondary performer whose job it is to reply to and encourage the main performer with short interjected comments.” Naamu imperfectly translates to “yes” or “I hear you.” Conrad does not mention who the naamu-sayers were, or whether the same men accompanied Conde throughout all six days of performance, nor does he give any information about their background.

Very little information is included about the performance context itself, and this is one aspect of the new translation that folklorists and oral tradition scholars will find disappointing. Information about the role of music or intonation, time of day, length of time for each piece of performance, and breaks in the performance is not given. Conrad refers to “recording sessions” but does not say how many or how long or with what equipment this epic was recorded. Only in the epilogue does Conrad explain that it required more than six days to complete what he describes as the “basic narrative” (127).

While Conrad is focused on oral traditional material, he approaches the material as an historian, rather than as a folklorist, a scholar of narrative or oral tradition. The introduction is often concerned with the conflict between Western historical scholarship that seeks historical data from oral epic and the indigenous point of view for what is of historical importance. Historians of medieval West Africa will find a great deal to appreciate in this new prose version, while folklorists’ questions of context and performance arena remain. However, Conrad indicates in the epilogue that he is working on a “complete, exhaustively annotated scholarly edition” (128) that will include material from interviews with the bard and with elders and may address those questions.

As a teacher, I miss many aspects of the verse version, particularly the verse form and the naamu responses, which keep the oral performance constantly at the forefront of the classroom experience of the printed text. But there is a lot to value in the clarity and accessibility of the new prose version. Until the exhaustive scholarly edition is available, both the old and the new versions make an important contribution.

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[Review length: 856 words • Review posted on September 12, 2017]