Publications of the American Folklore Society. New series

Anand Prahlad

Drawing on archival interviews, blues lyrics, and five years of fieldwork, this study explores African-American proverbs as living expressions of history, identity, resilience, and cultural creativity. Rather than treating sayings as isolated bits of folk wisdom, it examines how their grammatical, cultural, situational, and symbolic meanings shift according to who speaks them, where, and why. Examples gathered from churches, clubs, workplaces, streets, and family settings reveal proverbs as tools of humor, protest, instruction, affirmation, and communal connection. Scholarly yet attentive to the artistry of everyday speech, the book offers a richly contextualized portrait of African-American verbal tradition.