Raouf Mama is a beloved storyteller by children and adults familiar with his books Why Goats Smell Bad and Why Monkeys Live in Trees. His love of storytelling stems from a long and honorable oral tradition that goes back to the ancient empire of Mali, when people preserved the lessons of life in memory instead of on the written page.
Raouf says we each have a story of belonging and identity. He uses his stories to entertain, comfort, and most of all as a tool to enlighten students.
Now, Raouf Mama tells the story of his own journey from an eager student in the West African country of Benin to his current home in Connecticut.
But his journey took a lot of twists and turns along the way, such as when he learned at 20 that the man who raised him was not his father.
GUEST:
- Raouf Mama - Distinguished Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University, and author of Why Monkeys Live in Trees, winner of the 2008 National Multicultural Children’s Book Award; and his recent memoir, Fortune’s Favored Child
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John Dankosky and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired on September 25, 2015.
