Inventing an African Alphabet - Writing, Art, and Kongo Culture in the Drc

Focusing on the Mandombe alphabet and the life-story of its inventor, David Wabeladio Payi, Ramon Sarró combines biography, art, and religion to explore the connections between religious imagination and innovation in Kongo culture. He offers a unique case study of the search for cultural and epistemological independence in the global south.

List of contents

List of figures; List of maps; List of Glyphs; Acknowledgments; Part I. Introduction: 1. A writing lesson (in Luanda); Part II. Biography: 2. N'kamba: the road to revelation; 3. Kinshasa: the road to the university; 4. The eagle and the silk-cotton tree: my road with Wabeladio; Part III. Writing, Art, and Kongo Culture: 5. The road to the alphabet: the basics of Mandombe; 6. On the Kongo road writing and entrapping culture; 7. The road to art: the basics of Kimbanbula; 8. A different road: reading Wabeladio's 'Method of Discovery'; Part IV. Discussion: 9. How to make words with bricks: some final thoughts on creativity; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Ramon Sarró is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology of Africa at the University of Oxford. His book The Politics of Religious Change on the Upper Guinea Coast: Iconoclasm Done and Undone received the 2010 Amaury Talbot Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute. His current research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, focuses on prophetic imagination in Angola.

Product details

• Authors: Ramon Sarro, Ramon (University of Oxford) Sarro, Ramon Sarró
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.09.2024
• EAN: 9781009199483
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0919948-3
• No. of pages: 218
• Series: The International African Library
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; Kongo, HISTORY / Africa / General, Society & culture: general, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Social and cultural anthropology, African History, Society and culture: general, Writing systems, alphabets, Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire), Democratic Republic of Congo, African studies; anthropology; linguistics