The African Book without a title —Cosmologies of the Bantu-Kongo

O livro africano sem título — Cosmologia dos Bantu-Kongo, by Congolese author Bunseki Fu-Kiau, one of the foremost scholars and researchers of African culture, condenses the cosmological principles of the Bantu-Kongo, an ethnic group situated in the margins of the Atlantic in West Africa. Aided by figures and diagrams, Fu-Kiau introduces the teachings, principles, proverbs and world concepts that make up this system of thought, whose fundamental aspects are collectivity, community and ancestry.

Translated by musician and Bahia Federal University professor Tiganá Santana, Fu-Kiau’s first book to be published in Portuguese offers Brazilian readers access to a tradition of great influence in our country’s formation, making evident the crossing of transatlantic perspectives, since a large part of enslaved people who arrived in Brazil came from the area we now know as Angola, whose inhabitants were part of the Bantu language family.

The book features an interview conducted by the translator with educator Makota Valdina, the first person to translate Fu-Kiau’s writing into Portuguese, and cover matter written by Leda Maria Martins and wanderson flor do nascimento, which further enrich the edition. O livro africano sem título — Cosmologia dos Bantu-Kongo is a valuable source of knowledge about African wisdom and philosophy, and fuel for new forms of thought and approaches to our present and future.

About the author
Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau was born in 1934 in Manianga, in former Zaire, currently Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He was educated in the Western thought system, but also in three large Bantu-Kongo educational institutions: Khimba, Kimpasi and Lèmba. The latter is present in religious and cultural manifestations in the Americas with Black-African origins, such as Palo Mayombe (Cuba), Vodu Petro (Haiti) and Candomblé Congo-Angola and Umbanda (Brazil), due to the selling of enslaved people in colonial times. In the late 1950s, he went to university — and taught there — in Kinshasa, DRC. In 1963, he went back to Manianga, where he founded the Luyalungunu Lwa Kumba-Nsi Institute, a pioneer center dedicated to researching and documenting Kongo culture. His work revealed the philosophy of old Bantu educational institutions and influenced scholars such as Robert Farris Thompson, John M. Janzen and Wyatt MacGaffey. He taught for many years in the United States, where he continued his studies and taught about the depth of African philosophies. He published countless books and had a large academic career, with a PhD in Community Development, a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology, and other titles.

About the translator
Tiganá Santana is a composer, singer, instrumentalist, poet, musical producer, artistic director, curator, researcher, professor and translator. A multi-artist, he was the first Brazilian composer in the country’s phonographic history to present an album he composed featuring songs in African languages. He’s a Doctor in Literature (Translation Studies Program) from Universidade de São Paulo (USP), where he presented his thesis A cosmologia africana dos Bantu-Kongo por Bunseki Fu-Kiau: Tradução negra, reflexões e diálogos a partir do Brasil [The African cosmology of Bantu-Kongo by Bunseki Fu-Kiau: Black translation, reflections and dialogues from Brazil], which won the Antonio Candido award for best thesis from the National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Literature and Linguistics (Anpoll). Since 2020, he has been a professor at Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA), where he graduated in Philosophy, and he’s also a professor at the Multidisciplinary Brazilian Cultures and Identities Graduate Program from Universidade de São Paulo’s Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB). In 2015, he was the curador of Ocupação Dona Ivone Lara, at Instituto Itaú Cultural, in São Paulo, about the homonymous singer and composer in the occasion of her 94th birthday. From 2022 to 2023, also in Itaú Cultural, he led the immersive installation Perder a imagem, in dialogue with the thoughts of writer and historian Beatriz Nascimento. In 2023 he conceived and presented the soundscapes Um defeito de cor I and Um defeito de cor II, for the collective show Um Defeito de Cor, at Museu de Arte do Rio, in Rio de Janeiro, based on Ana Maria Gonçalves’s novel, as well as the soundscape Reino das invenções, for the collective exhibit Invenção dos Reinos, at Oficina Brennand, in Recife. In the same year, he exhibited a sound installation in honor of Ilê Aiyê, the first African-Brazilian Carnaval bloco, with the work Ilês, Aiyês, carnavais e ancestrais for Festival Novas Frequências, at Futuros — Arte e Tecnologia, in Rio de Janeiro. Alongside artist Ayrson Heráclito, he participated in the 35th Bienal de São Paulo with the commissioned installation Floresta de infinitos. Santana has various pieces of writing and musical albums published, both in Brazil and abroad, and has been considered by distinguished academic communities as one of the foremost references for Bantu African studies in Brazil, as well as one of the ten main Brazilian current musicians by English magazine Songlines.

Specifications
Title O livro africano sem título — Cosmologia dos Bantu-Kongo [The African Book without a title —Cosmologies of the Bantu-Kongo]
Author Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau
Language Portuguese
Translator Tiganá Santana
Page count 208
Publisher Cobogó
ISBN 978-65-5691-146-5
Cover Thiago Lacaz
Format Softcover
Size 14 x 21 cm
Year 2024