Book Collecting in Timbuktu

HISTORY OF THE BOOK

SPEAKER: Shamil Jeppie, University of Cape Town

This lecture surveys five centuries of collecting in Timbuktu, a town in the interior of West Africa, that has come to symbolize a larger world of learning and book culture in the region. This lecture follows citations in texts written in the town in the 16th century, book borrowing and copying, through to a major collector of the early 20th century who both attempted to conserve the manuscript book tradition and imported printed books to Timbuktu.