On their journey they'll cross paths with friend and foe, from myth and legend alike, and revisit the traditions, tales, and stories that gave birth to their people and nurture them still. Inspired by West African folklore and stories handed over centuries, this unique graphic novel follows the adventures of Mansour, last prince of a dying kingdom, and Awa, his loyal Djeliya, or 'royal storyteller' as they journey to meet the great wizard who destroyed their world and then withdrew into his tower, never to be seen again. Djeliya is his first graphic novel and he describes his artistic approach as “what happens when the influences of 2000s era Cartoon Network enter the brain of the average Senegalese boy.” The tagline is A West African Fantasy Epic. Folklore as a tradition is mutable, so it’s only right that people today should put their own spin on tales that are hundreds or even thousands of years old.Īnd all this is precisely what intrigued me about Djeliya, a graphic novel by Senegalese author and illustrator Juni Ba.

After all, most folklore begins as an oral tradition and if you’ve ever played a game of telephone then you know how words can get minced and mixed over time. One of the coolest ways I see people doing that is by putting their own spin on folklore tales as a means of bringing them into the future. But I believe in the power of folklore to unite communities, the enduring relevance of folklore even as societies become more technologically advanced, and the importance of preserving folklore as part of cultural history. I’ll be the first to admit that as a white person from Alabama, I don’t know a thing about West African folklore.

Djeliya by Juni Ba