as told by Fa-Digi Sisoko

When told orally, an epic, as is true of a legend, a folktale, or a ballad, can have as many different versions as there are individual performances of the tale. Among the several renderings of the Sunjata epic that have been recorded and published in English are Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (1965), as told by Mamadou Kouyatè and translated by D. T. Niane; Sunjata: Three Mandinka versions (1974), told by Bamba Suso, Banna Kanute, and Dembo Kanute, and translated by Gordon Innes; and The Epic of Son-Jara (1986), as told by Fa-Digi Sisòkò and translated by John William Johnson. Although these versions vary in many particulars, they all relate the story of the founder of Mali’s Manding empire, who goes by many names, but who will be herein known as “Sunjata”—his most common nomenclature. The...