Ṣàwárí

Forty Yorùbá proverbs on the lawsuit, the hearing, the judge and the verdict, on what makes a judgement fair and what corrupts it, and on the guilt that arrives before anyone rules on it, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.

A childless queen who has been refused by every god steals a newborn from a sleeping woman by the roadside, and is exposed when the hungry baby quiets instantly at its real mother's breast.