Over the Lip of the World: Among the Storytellers of Madagascar
ISBN: 9780295997643
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Washington Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Oral tradition -- Madagascar; Storytelling -- Madagascar; Mythology Malagasy;

Gifted travel writer, poet, professor of English, and insightful observer of human nature, Colleen McElroy journeyed to Madagascar to undertake a Fulbright research project exploring Malagasy oral traditions and myths. In Over the Lip of the World she depicts with equal verve the various storytelling traditions of the island and her own adventures in trying to find and record them.



McElroy's tale of an African American woman's travels among the people of Madagascar is told with wit, insight, and humor. Throughout it she interweaves English translations of Malagasy stories of heroism and morality, royalty and commoners, love and revenge, and the magic of tricksters and shapechangers.

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