by Edsoleda Santos

*author of the African Legends of the Orixás series

This collection of illustrated books about African gods, edited and published by Solisluna Editora, expresses my view as an artist, on the cultural richness of the people of the Yoruba tradition, based on their myths, legends, stories, greetings, orikis, prayers , and songs; inspiring family sources, with which I feel comfortable creating and moving forward in my research, as I was born and raised in the city of Salvador da Bahia, being rocked in the cradle of the purest Africanity.

I am enchanted by these ancient stories told by the guardians of ancestral knowledge, orally, receiving new interpretations as they are retold from generation to generation. The stories narrated in this series were strongly influenced by my ancestral heritage. To write the narratives I also based myself on the legends collected by ethnologist Pierre Verger, they were gathered by the researcher over years of his research among the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin. Other authors such as Síkírù Sàlámì, Roger Bastide, Cléo Martins, Lydia Cabrera and Mãe Stella de Oxóssi were also relevant sources in my bibliographical research, in addition to important testimonies such as that of Mãe Branca de Omolú for the writing of the book Obaluaê.

In my chest of memories I keep the legends and teachings I received from my great-grandmother Ebami Maria Augusta Pires, daughter of enslaved people, and bearer of much knowledge of African culture and religion. It was a spontaneous, pleasurable learning experience and I consider it a significant foundation for my personal, social and professional development. It was this basis that made me embrace Solisluna Editora's proposal, creating a series, aimed at children and young people, disseminating to future generations, this subtle knowledge, inserted in the metaphors of the poetry of legends, for the illumination of the soul.

I developed the creative process following the narrative of the Legends, where the Gods are humanized to show their heroic deeds; and thinking about the affinity between Africans and Bahians, I chose the colonial urban landscape of Salvador as the setting for these stories, a living witness to the arrival of enslaved Africans, witnessing the suffering and helplessness caused by the diaspora.

The construction of the characters in each story flows according to the scenes, as they are already pearls of memory, generated by my coexistence with black people, and the people of saint, on the long journey of life. I also rely on bibliographical research on the customs of the Nigerian people, in the past and today.

This set of experiences and research gathered in this series of ten books, aims to disseminate these books in schools, counting on the adoption of teachers, so that these contents can be studied and worked on with students, in readings and workshops, in different fields. of creativity through visual arts, dance, music, theater and literature, reaffirming the importance of the African cultural legacy in the formation of us all.

Edsoleda Santos was born in the city of Salvador, Bahia, and began her career as a visual artist in 1965. From that time on, she developed pen and ink and watercolor techniques, emphasizing drawing, using as themes the colonial architecture of Salvador and the comic. Master in Arts from the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), he researched various techniques, such as acrylic painting, object and installation; studied themes of Afro-Bahian religion, always trying to show the interrelationship of art, Candomblé and nature. An award-winning artist and tireless researcher, she found no difficulty in illustrating such a profound theme, since, since childhood, the mysteries of life enchanted her, making her seek in her own experience, especially that which she had with her family, the wonderful inspirations that your talent transforms into inspiring actions.

The series of books about the orixás and African legends by Solisluna Editora are: Exu , Ogum , Ibejis , Oxum , Oxumaré , Xangô , Iemanjá , Nanã , Obalauê and Oxalufã