My interest interest in the African country of Mali was kindled by two very impressive novels set in that country: T. Coraghessan Boyle's Water Music and the epic saga Segu by Maryse Conde. It opened up an unknown and unexpected world of Moorish caravan traders, cattle breeding nomads, tribes farming the more fertile lands and indigenous kingdoms in which the Islamic culture of North Africa merged with the heritage of black Africa. Mali is huge, stretching from the Sahara in the north to the rain fo