Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales

Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Laureate for Peace, gathers Africa's most cherished folktales, with the specific hope that Africa's oldest stories, as well as a few new ones, will be perpetuated by future generations and be appreciated by children throughout the world. Through this project, these tales that have been handed down by Africans from generation to generation are returned to their original oral form in new readings by an international cast of celebrities, such as: Nobel laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Rickman and Samuel L. Jackson. Some are as old as African civilization itself, including tales from the San and Khoi, the original hunter-gatherers and livestock herders of southern Africa. Translated into English and other European languages chiefly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from their original languages, these folktales are a testament to the craft of storytelling and the power of myth.