Whether it evokes a sense of nostalgia or serves as a means to connect with your children by reading stories with familiar characters and settings, Suloo and Sang offers you that and so much more.
Like all such stories in African folklore, the goal is to impart wisdom and morals to the curious minds of the young as they venture into the world.
As we spread out across the globe in search of better opportunities, in pursuit of knowledge, or escape from hardship and trauma, we gradually lose the connections to our roots. We adopt new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things, and, with time, the daily and/or seasonal activities that make home so familiar fade into the background. Our memories become hazy, and given enough time, we forget.
As the African diaspora, whether we are recent arrivals or descendants of those forcibly separated from their kinfolk centuries ago, our new environments have forced us to adapt to new realities and overcome new challenges. There are no more stories around log fires in the middle of the compound. This has been replaced by television designed around worldviews that are mostly unfamiliar, seeking to teach our children values we do not recognize. Even reading, where we once sought an escape, is increasingly on the decline.
Unless we build community with people who share similar ideals and familiar experiences, the stories of who we are become lost to time. The ancestors who were taken against their will built such communities in the Americas and the Caribbean. Finding themselves in unfamiliar lands, among strange peoples and cultures, they sought each other out in the midst of their misery, relied on each other, and kept their stories alive in ways that retained aspects of what they were made to separate from. That resilience of spirit spun new cultural identities across these regions, identities whose roots connect back to their ancestral lands. When we experience these cultures, they feel both foreign yet familiar.
We owe it to the world to retain as much of who we are as we can, and share that with those who may not be familiar with our ways, or see us only through the narratives created by people other than ourselves, often in unflattering ways.
In this first attempt to preserve in writing some of the stories that were transmitted to us orally, I hope it serves as an inspiration for us to look back to the past for answers to some of the challenges we face today. But primarily, I hope that sharing Suloo and Sang with your children serves as an opportunity to create memories that tell a part of your story as someone familiar with these tales. It may even jog your memory of other related stories and your own regional variations.
To those who may not consider themselves part of the African diaspora, or are not familiar with these kinds of stories, the characters, or the settings, I hope to introduce you to a little corner of Africa where stories ride on waves of rhythm to bring us wisdom from as far back as the beginning of time.
Order your copies now, for delivery in the US using this link or through Barnes and Noble. Those in the United Kingdom can get a copy via this link. Limited signed copies can be purchased directly from the author using the shop feature on this site. Note, this option may take longer delivery times as the author copies have not been delivered yet.This option only has US deliveries for now. But if you prefer having the signed copy and cannot wait to read this amazing folk tale in the meantime, you can get a Kindle eBook version from Amazon. Hard copies are also available via Amazon.
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