Gueye Featured in African Literature Today

Dr. Marame Gueye’s article “The Panegyric of the Champion: How Wolof Wrestlers Borrowed From Female Oral Genres to Win in and Outside the Arena” was published in African Literature Today 41, a special issue focusing on African Literature in African Languages.

Gueye writes: “The article focuses on bàkku, a form of panegyric among the Wolof of Senegal and the Gambia, specifically performed during traditional wrestling matches. Wolof traditional wrestling is the domain of men, but while performing bàkku, the wrestler’s self-praise is delivered with wit and rhetorical sophistication. Bàkku adds to the masculine mystique. However, the genre borrows heavily from female genres such as tansu and xaxar, which I have written extensively on.”