Renowned African ‘Griot’ Currently in Cuba

HAVANA TIMES, April 24 — Actor and director Hassane Kouyate of Burkino Faso will be in Havana starting today for the international “Owners of the Word” festival, which will also include oral storytellers from Haiti and Cuba, reported the Prensa Latina news agency.

The program will include appearances at the Adolfo Llaurado Theater and a theoretical event in the Ruben Martinez Villena Library. There, together with Kouyate, a presentation will be given by Franco-Haitian narrator Mimi Barthelemy.

Kouyate is an icon of the Peter Brook theater company and is a descendant of the highest caste of African “griots,” who are storytellers capable of narrating in the fashion similar to that of a poet, a singer of praises or a traveling musician.