Literary places in Ségou

Segu

Maryse Condé

In the Bambara kingdom of Ségou on the Niger, at the turn of the nineteenth century, the noble family of Dousika Traoré is scattered and transformed as Islam, the Atlantic slave trade and European ambition converge on West Africa. Condé's sweeping historical epic is rooted in a real geography: the animist royal city on the great river, the Niger itself, the Muslim learning of the north at Timbuktu, and the slave coast to which one son is carried away.

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