Vitabu Books

On Thurs, Oct. 9, United Kingdom's Chief Medical Officer announced enhanced screening arrangements at the main ports of entry for people travelling from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. "Enhanced screening will initially be implemented at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports and Eurostar terminals and will involve assessing passengers’ recent travel history, who they have been in contact with and onward travel arrangements as well as a possible medical assessment, conducted by trained medical personnel rather than Border Force staff. Passengers will also be given advice on what to do should they develop symptoms later." Today's story is from a Sierra Leonean-born  public health professional who investigates patterns and causes of disease in humans. Dr. Osman Sankoh, who writes under the pen name (Mallam O) works to reduce the risk and occurrence of negative health outcomes through research, community education, and health policy. In this blog, he describes...

Tendai Huchu is the author of The Hairdresser of Harare . His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Manchester Review, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Wasafiri, Warscapes, The Africa Report, The Zimbabwean, Kwani? journal and numerous other publications. In 2013 he received a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Sacatar Fellowship. He was shortlisted for the 2014 Caine Prize. His next novel will be The Maestro, The Magistrate, & The Mathematician . We live in interesting times for lovers of African literature. You can’t go a week or two these days without some middle-aged white dude decrying the death of the novel etc, etc. yet in Africa we’re still thinking of expansion. It could very well be that the western novel reached its zenith whenever and is now in decline, but Africa still has room and hope for expansion. There is a surge of confidence in writers who are winning over global audiences for their stories. Some of the more interesting developments are happening o...

Just down from university sometime in 1994, I went to interview Professor Eldred Jones at his home for a newspaper.  A nasty bush war had been raging in the countryside, but Freetown was untouched. At Fourah Bah College (FBC), however, the war had some immediacy.   Shortly after it started, several students from the university who had gone on holidays to their villages in the countryside had been abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, and those who escaped returned with graphic stories of atrocities.     A coup had occurred, and the youthful soldiers who constituted what they were pleased to call National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) were in the habit of frequenting the college’s campus, the appearance of support from the famous school adding some glamour to the ‘revolution’. Jones, the universally venerated long-term principal of the university, was retired to his home at Leicester, at the tip of the Mount Aureol, where the university is...

Director, teacher, and writer Anni Domingo has been acting for 40 years. She has worked in theater, radio, television and films —touring Europe, the United States and Australia as a Shakespearean actress. She runs her own company, Shakespeare Link, which offers workshops on Shakespeare in schools, youth clubs and theaters all over the United Kingdom. She has written workbooks on Shakespeare, and these are now used in many schools. Anni has worked for British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio and other stations as an actress and broadcaster. She has written children’s plays which have been performed in schools and her poems have been published in the poetry anthology “Secret and Silent Tears.” She is a member of the Sierra Leone Writer Series Editorial Board. Currently, she is editing her novel, “Breaking the Maafa Chain” and recently published her memoir, “Empire Girl” featured in the Words & Women One anthology. Anni’s story is based on her mother’s experience of growing...

Chukwuemeka George Dike, author of the modern Lagos-based thriller The Inverted Pyramid , has set his new fiction, African Tales of a Green Planet , in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria roughly between 1730-1850. The time, place and publication date are symbolic for a number of reasons. Emeka Dike's story grew out of his father’s book, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830-1885: An Introduction to the Economic and Political History of Nigeria , published before Emeka was born. Kenneth Onwuka Dike's Trade and Politics grew out of his 1950 thesis for a doctorate degree at Kings College London, and first published in Britain in 1956.  In the foreword of the 2011 Bookcraft Africa publication, Gareth Austin, at the London School of Economics,   saw Trade and Politics not only "as an inspiration for the broad field of West African and African history, and as a pioneering contribution to the presentation of West Africans’ perspective on their history," Au...

Hardcover: 382 pages Publisher: AuthorHouse (March 29, 2014) Language: English ISBN-10: 1491874120 ISBN-13: 978-1491874127 In her debut novel, Smoke in the Kitchen , Gloria S.N. Allen introduces Sara, a third-generation auctioneer, who recently found the courage to let go of a lovelorn past. Perhaps, Ben Moses, a well-traveled policy adviser, was just the man to draw the shrewd businesswoman out of loneliness, but their first Easter together in the “extra-large home” they share brings the 40-something couple more than a symbolic new birth into living hope. Sara wants to fuel, and fill, her kitchen with wood-smoke as she cooks delicious dishes; fend off nagging claims to the old family business she's built up against the odds, and raise a family. Sara’s challenges are emotionally absorbing and Ben must find ways to help them see the world anew. But Smoke in the Kitchen is more than family drama. The book also sheds light on adoption in Sierra Leone, ...

In the United States, the month of April has been designated Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The goal  is to raise public  awareness about sexual violence and to educate communities and individuals on how to prevent sexual violence. Below is a short story by Mariama Seray Kandeh. She is a gender and rights activist and uses her voice as a journalist to convey her message. ----------- Sidi lay on the grass-filled mattress feeling angry and disgusted with a tradition he had come face to face with again. Light shone through the window and the morning felt very warm; the thatch hut had not helped to ease the heat. He took off his under vest and went to the petite window held up by a piece of stick. Feeling coolness from the light breeze of the fresh water river behind his compound, he told himself, “This is better than discussion with Papa and uncle.” Sidi had woken up early that morning and gone out for a jog in white shorts and under vest. He had also gone t...