Stephen Bulman wrote a Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham on written versions of the Sunjata oral tradition and has researched and published on Manding oral traditions, including (with Valentin Vydrine), The Epic of Sumanguru Kante (Brill, 2017) based on fieldwork in Mali. He works in administration at Lancaster University.
Stephen Belcher graduated from Brown University in 1985. He was a member of the Peace Corps in Mauritania, and taught at Penn State. He was the editor of Mande Studies until 2010. He is now retired and mixing family history with African studies.
Valentin Vydrin wrote a Ph.D. at the Leningrad State University on Looma language (Southwestern Mande group) in 1987, and a habilitation thesis at the St. Petersburg State University (Russia) on comparative studies of Mande in 2001. He has worked at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg and taught Manding languages at the St. Petersburg State University. Since 2010, he is professor of Manding at INALCO, Paris.

• List of maps and figures


• Acknowledgements


• Note on translations


• Foreword: A Platform for Re-Examining History and Praise, the Public and the Personal, in the Sunjata Corpus


• Maps


• Introduction: Towards a history of the Sunjata epic


• 1: Emile Hourst: The legend of Somangoro and Sundiata from Kulikoro


• 2: Jean-Gilbert Jaime: The legend of Sumanguru from Kulikoro


• 3: Fernand Quiquandon: 'The history of Manding power according to legend and tradition' - Sunjata's epic from the griots of Kenedugu fàama Tieba Traore, ruler of Sikasso


• 4: Charles Monteil: Two Khasonka versions of the legend of 'Simanguru and Sun-Jata'


• 5: The history of Sundiata from a Kita chronicle


• 6: Mamadou Diakite: Genealogy of the Keïta - an Umarian account of Sunjata


• 7: Mamadou Diakite: Historical legends of the Nioro region


• 8: Bathily: An oral performance of the Sunjata epic from Nioro's Western Sudanese chronicle


• 9: Mamadi Aïssa Kaba Diakite: The history of the war between the empires of Sosso and Mande


• 10: Kande Kanote: The legend of Sundiata


• 11: Habibou Sissoko: Additional material on the legend of Sundiata


• 12: Kieba Koate 'Korongo': The Sunjatta legend of the Malinke people


• 13: Jules Vidal: The 'official' legend of Sundiata, founder of the Mali empire


• 14: Bakary Diabate: Sundiata - Abdoulaye Sadji's hero for the Negritude movement


• 15: Mamby Sidibé: Sundiata Keita, historical and legendary hero, emperor of the Manding


• 16: Théatre dahoméen: The Tricks of Jegue


• 17: Maximilien Quénum: The legend of Fama-Sundiata


• 18: René Guillot: The Magic Arrow


• 19: Paul Humblot: Episodes from the legend of Sondiata


• 20: Ali Sawse: A Wolof version of Sunjata


• Glossary


• Table of episodes


• Index of common names


• Bibliography


• Index

The Corpus enables in-depth study of the coherence of and variation within the Sunjata epic oral tradition. It presents a rich evocation of this still-living performance tradition during almost the entirety of the Western Sudan's turbulent period of European colonial control, from the late 1880s to 1959.