Bakar Mansaray, the founder of the Mandingo Scrolls blog and winner of the 2017 Writer-of-the-Year, Afro-Canadian Heroes Award, is known for his riveting short stories and tales of life in his native Sierra Leone. In his new book, My Afro-Canadian Chronicle , published by Sierra Leonean Writers Series, the author sheds a personal light on the devastating effects of underdevelopment on a country that went through one of the most atrocious civil wars in modern history. "For those who have read books of literature, history and anthropology from Sierra Leone and yet harbour the sinking feeling that there had to be a missing link between narratives, Bakar’s book provides that missing link to complete the national narrative," writes novelist and poet Oumar Farouk Sesay in the Foreword. "This autobiography is a portrait painted on a canvas of memory in vivid and sometimes dark hues, telling a story only a mind as lucid as the author’s can tell. This excerpt was used wi
This excerpt from a book on Sierra Leonean women councilors, mayors, cabinet ministers, and political candidates was first published on April 23, 2016. O ne of the pioneering political figures, Constance Horton Cummings-John, was born during the 1918 influenza pandemic, widely regarded as the most severe in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. I magine nursing a six-month-old baby while a deadly virus rips through town. You have neighbors hovering between life and death and your husband’s assistant has lost 21 family members to the virus. The Spanish influenza of 1918 is regarded as the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. First, victims experienced headaches, pain, and fever. Next, their faces turned blue-black. Then they coughed up blood and bled from the nose after. Finally, as bacteria invaded the lungs, vital organs transformed into fluid, drowning the patient. For
Andrew Keili's shrewd, introspective, oftentimes hilarious commentaries in Ponder My Thoughts Vol. 1 are much like the opinion articles he wrote in the mid-2000s, when he explained post-war Sierra Leone, its management, or lack of it, in local, regional, and national government. How we see things depends on where we stand on Sierra Leonean--ness, society, and politics. Keili's book, Ponder My Thoughts, captures a year (2013) in observations and stories, but it's not a time capsule. It's information you can use—contemporary Sierra Leonean history pieced together one op-ed at a time. Remember that debate surrounding misuse of funds from GAVI? The global vaccine alliance that buys vaccines with Gavi funding, procured through UNICEF directly with the manufacturer, and delivered to low-income countries like Sierra Leone? Keili's columns start with the uncompromising subject of misuse of funds in public life and how Sierra Leone doesn't learn from mistakes
Comments
Post a Comment