TITLE: Timbuktu Manuscipts and the Efforts to Maintain the Desert
SPEAKER: Abdel Kader Haidara
EVENT DATE: 09/03/2003
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
The curator of the Mamma Haidara Memorial Library in Timbuktu, Mali, presented a lecture related to and illustrative of the exhibit "Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu." Though known to African communities for generations, the recognition of these texts by Western academics has created a breakthrough in recent scholarship. Once believed to be based solely on oral tradition, African culture also has been passed down through a rich literary tradition as evidenced by the existence of these manuscripts.
Speaker Biography: Abdel Kader Haidara is curator of the Mamma Haidara Memorial Library in Timbuktu, Mali.
