The Black Cloth (French title Le Pagne Noir: Contes Africains) is a collection of African folk tales by Bernard Binlin Dadié. It was first published in 1955, in French; an English translation by Karen C. Hatch was published in 1987. The stories were published at a time when many African writers (including Dadié and such authors as Birago Diop) were creating a new outlet for traditional African art, converting oral literature into written literature, and adapting writing to convey the tradition of orality.