United States First publication date: 2016 Frederick Turner, Apocalypse: An Epic Poem Frederick Turner’s third epic poem Apocalypse (2016) opens dramatically in the year 2067 with a colossal windstorm sweeping across the North Sea, causing...
Madagascar First transcribed in 1830. Ibonia Madagascar’s Ibonia is a tale of an immaculate conception, a fiercely contested betrothal, and a bittersweet triumph. The epic was orally transmitted until 1830 when it was first written down in Malagasy. This occurred...
East Africa (Swahili) Oral tradition: 9th-13th century CEFirst transcribed: c. 13th century CE The Epic of Liyongo by Muhammad Bin Bakari Kijumwa: 1913 The Epic of Liyongo Introduction commissioned. Name of...
West Africa (the Sudanese empire of Old Mali) Oral tradition: c. 13th century CEWritten summaries (Arabic): before 1890Translations (French, German): 1890-1898First line-by-line transcription: 1967 Epic of Sun-Jata* Sun-Jata (Son-Jara, Sundiata) was the...
Congo oral epic first published in 1969 Mwindo What makes great works of literature great is that which makes them belong, not just to the canon of their own nation, but to the emergent human canon. Mwindo is a case in point....
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