ABSTRACT
One of the features in which Tshibumba’s Histoire differs from the lives of Julien is its aesthetic appeal. Whereas in Julien’s text forms of embellishment were rare – there would be nicely curved lines under the chapter titles, but apart from that the text was visually austere – Tshibumba has written not just a document but a beautiful document. As mentioned earlier, Tshibumba’s handwriting is definitely more pleasing to the eye, and he uses visual markers such as indentation to separate paragraphs. The text, thus, looks clearer and more transparent. In addition, his Histoire contains some drawings, to which I shall return shortly. Tshibumba has clearly made an effort at making his text not just into an intellectual product, but also into an aesthetic one. He has attended to the aesthetic aspect of the text by elaborating visual text-organising resources.
