Angola in the Comics #14: Njinga Mbandi, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba

Here's a rarity for my occasional "Angola in the Comics" series - a publication which exists solely to educate people about Angolan history! I learned from it as well!

The book is titled Njinga Mbandi, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba and was co-published by UNESCO and Harper-Collins in 2014 as part of a series titled 'Women in African History'. Half of the book is given over to educational material about the history of Angola and Njinga Mbandi, but the largest portion of the book is the comic book adaptation of the life of Queen Njinga Mbandi. The comic was written by Edoard Joubeaud and Sylvia Serbin with art by Pat Masioni (a Congolese artist).

The book is written in a very simple easy-to-read style, probably to help ease it into classrooms. Most of the comics pages use a single illustration per page and there aren't too many speech balloons (most text is in captions), but it is definitely a comic book. I had heard a little about Queen Njinga in passing through my research on Angola and I saw a statue of her while I was in Luanda two years ago. It's good to finally have absorbed the most salient details of her life and better understand where she fits into Angolan history. Since this book was intended to serve as an educational aid, I'd say it did its job. Thanks, UNESCO!