Tracing Memory: A Glossary of Graphic Signs and Symbols in African Art and Culture

by Clémentine Faik-Nzuji Madiya

Tracing Memory provides a systematic inventory of African graphic signs, revealing their creative force of analogy in thought and perception. For the people who use them, they represent a gift from God -- tools to disclose hidden thoughts. Tracing Memory promotes a new way of looking at Africa, its cultures, and its spirituality.

217 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1996

About the author

Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji Madiya (born Clémentine Nzuji, 21 January 1944), is a Congolese poet and writer. She was born in Tshofa, Kabinda District in the Belgian Congo. Albert S. Gérard calls her "the first poet of real significance" among a group of African writers who emerged in the late 1960s; she was also the first female writer in the Belgian Congo.

She graduated from Lovanium University. She also holds a doctorate in African studies from the University of Paris.

Nzuji is married and is the mother of five children, and many of her poems refer to her family.

In 1964, she founded the Pléiade du Congo, a literary group in Kinshasa, and headed and helped found the International Centre for African Languages, Literatures and Traditions in favour of Development (CILTADE) at the Catholic University of Louvain. She has made important contributions in the study of Bantu linguistics and oral literature. She is also an award-winning author of short stories and poetry.