One of the largest literary productions in Africa has been digitized and is in Google Arts & Culture. Is named Mali Magic and includes more than 40,000 pages of manuscripts from Timbuktu, a city seven kilometers from the Niger River, in the Republic of Mali.
In collaboration with historians from West Africa, Google has been working on the digitization of part of the cultural heritage of Mali. After intense work, this new digital project was recently launched, open to the public. To explore it, just enter here.
There are texts from the 11th to the 20th century that cover various topics, including astronomy, law, and medicine. This is the work preserved by the librarian Abdel Kader Haidara, who is known for the work he did in 2012 when he saved these important literary works from the jihadists who had then occupied Timbuktu.
The squatters began vandalizing historical sites in the city, and Haidara realized that the manuscripts were in great danger. TOyes, it was how he formed a support network, made up of local and international organizations, and they began to collect the texts so that they could be transferred to a safe place.
