Books with author Roger Abrahams

This addition to the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library completes Roger Abrahams's masterful survey of taletelling in the black world by showing the vital forms African stories took as they entered the New World. These 107 tales come from the canefields of the antebellum South, the villages of Caribbean islands, and the streets of contemporary Philadelphia. Throbbing with life, they range from earthy comedy (in recounting the scandalous doings of tricksters Rabbit and Fox) to inventive "just-so" stories explaining why the world is the way it is, to moral fables about encounters between masters and slaves, kings and servants, black and white. Together, they robustly demonstrate the ways an uprooted people have drawn from the traditions of their past to fashion a life -- and with it, a whole new and vital culture -- in the New World.

The deep forest and broad savannah, the campsites, kraals, and villages—from this immense area south of the Sahara Desert the distinguished American folklorist Roger D. Abrahams has selected ninety-five tales that suggest both the diversity and the interconnectedness of the people who live there. The storytellers weave imaginative myths of creation and tales of epic deeds, chilling ghost stories, and ribald tales of mischief and magic in the animal and human realms. Abrahams renders these stories in a narrative voice that reverberates with the rhythms of tribal song and dance and the emotional language of universal concerns.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Full of life, wisdom, and humor, these tales range from the earthy comedy of tricksters to accounts of how the world was created and got to be the way it is to moral fables that tell of encounters between masters and slaves. They include stories set down in nineteenth-century travelers' reports and plantation journals, tales gathered by collectors such as Joel Chandler Harris and Zora Neale Hurston, and narratives tape-recorded by Roger Abrahams himself during extensive expeditions throughout the American South and the Caribbean.With black-and-white illustrations throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folkore Library

The deep forest and broad savannah, the campsites, kraals, and villages—from this immense area south of the Sahara Desert the distinguished American folklorist Roger D. Abrahams has selected ninety-five tales that suggest both the diversity and the interconnectedness of the people who live there. The storytellers weave imaginative myths of creation and tales of epic deeds, chilling ghost stories, and ribald tales of mischief and magic in the animal and human realms. Abrahams renders these stories in a narrative voice that reverberates with the rhythms of tribal song and dance and the emotional language of universal concerns.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Full of life, wisdom, and humor, these tales range from the earthy comedy of tricksters to accounts of how the world was created and got to be the way it is to moral fables that tell of encounters between masters and slaves. They include stories set down in nineteenth-century travelers' reports and plantation journals, tales gathered by collectors such as Joel Chandler Harris and Zora Neale Hurston, and narratives tape-recorded by Roger Abrahams himself during extensive expeditions throughout the American South and the Caribbean.With black-and-white illustrations throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folkore Library