Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1946, Boubacar Boris Diop is widely regarded as one of the most important novelists and intellectuals in Africa.Vera Wülfing-Leckei received an M.A. Classics and Modern Languages from Oxford University. She has translated numerous works from English to German, including an abridged version of Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom. Currently, she is translating “Parole chantée et communication social chez les Wolof du Sénégal” by Momar Cissé.El Hadji Moustapha Diop has translated several published works, including those of Boubacar Boris Diop and Ousmane Sembène. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student of French Studies at the University of Western Ontario, focusing on Francophone postcolonial studies.

• Contents Part 1. Nguirane Faye Notebook 1. The Tale of the Ashes Notebook 2. The Book of the Winds Notebook 3. Playing in the Dark Notebook 1. The Tale of the Ashes Notebook 4. Ninki Nanka, a Fiction Notebook 5. Brief Escapades Notebook 1. The Tale of the Ashes Notebook 3. Playing in the Dark Notebook 6. Farewell Badou Part 2. I, Ali Kaboye!

“One of the best writers working in Africa today, Diop has taken the daring step of writing a novel in Wolof, his native tongue. An old man writes a series of notebooks to explain the cockeyed history of his country to his grandson, but the grandson has left Senegal and may never read the notebooks. The result is an innovative, exuberant narrative where Senegalese folktales bang up against postmodern uncertainties, altering the form of the European novel. “—Charles J. Sugnet, professor emeritus, University of Minnesota