Hausa folktales from Niger

The folktales in this volume were originally broadcast over Niger's national radio station La Voix du Sahel during the years 1988 and 1989. Two well-known storytellers with some twenty years of experience narrated the forty tales in this collection. Robert Glew has translated them with care into captivating English prose. Some of the tales operate in the animal world and are etiological in nature. Others deal with human beings and reflect the values and expected behavior of Hausa society. The storytellers employ reality and fantasy and they draw from a countless number of motifs and images to tell their stories. There are no definitive versions of any tale. Rather, the stories are based upon motives that are popular in Hausa folklore, such as the importance of respecting one's elders, the need for trust, and the undesirability of greed, all of which meet with harsh consequences if ignored. The collection will be of interest to students of folklore, children's tales, and African oral tradition.