The Living Libraries of West Africa

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Journalist Eliot Stein explores the tradition of the djeli – African storytellers who memorize and pass down oral histories – tracing it all the way back to the Mali Empire. Along the way, he tracked down a modern djeli, who is upholding and remixing the tradition. And he found him in an unexpected place: working in a convenience store.  


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

More description

Journalist Eliot Stein explores the tradition of the djeli – African storytellers who memorize and pass down oral histories – tracing it all the way back to the Mali Empire. Along the way, he tracked down a modern djeli, who is upholding and remixing the tradition. And he found him in an unexpected place: working in a convenience store.  


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

2025-11-06 23 min
Listen elsewhere

Available Results

Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.