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The Master of Speech – Kouma Lafôlô Kouma
The Master of Speech – Kouma Lafôlô Kouma, published in 1978 by Plon, is the last book of Camara Laye. The result of twenty years of research among Malinke griots, the work is a fictionalized transcription of the epic of Soundiata, founder of the Mali Empire in the 13th century.
Laye did not merely collect the songs: he fictionalized them to make them accessible to a wider readership, between ethnography and literature. His work is particularly based on the recitation of griot Babou Condé, whom he had met during his research.
This closing book is both a return to oral sources and a masterful synthesis of all of Laye’s research on the history of black peoples.