Silences we Carry: A Novella & Short Stories - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Foreword

In the early 1990s, I was part of an emerging vanguard of Sierra Leonean writers who championed the literary arts as a critical tool for fostering a genuine national and cultural renaissance in our country. This was during a time when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was wreaking havoc across the land with its fratricidal war—scarring our shared identity, battering the national spirit, and plunging communities into primeval chaos. Yet, even amid (or perhaps because of) the turmoil, we pressed on, resolute in our collective vision to realize the dream of our founding fathers. After all, we were the generation born in the wake of our country’s independence in 1961. Here we were now, fresh out of university, exuding youthful aspirations, confident in our creativity, and animated by a wide-eyed commitment to a craft we believed could serve as a clenched fist of courage and strength to both strike against the encroaching darkness and hold up a torch to illumine the path ahead. It was with this energy that we founded the iconic Falui Poetry Society, a crucible where we honed our skills and forged our distinct voices for the task ahead.

Among that cadre of “Falui” poets was Oumar Farouk Sesay, who today remains the most dedicated to the craft and the cause. Since our formative “Falui” days, he has not only devoted the years to expanding his repertoire of critically acclaimed poetry but has also ventured into other major genres of the literary arts, including drama, fiction, and non-fiction. In all his writing, Sesay demonstrates a depth of social consciousness and mastery of craft that attests to a committed apprenticeship under African literary maestros like Syl Cheney-Coker and Niyi Osundare. It is no wonder that the mantle of leadership for Sierra Leonean writing today—both locally and internationally—has naturally fallen on his shoulders.

In Silences We Carry: A Novella and Short Stories, Sesay offers a portfolio of narratives anchored in the existential realities of Sierra Leone yet resonant with the lived experiences of people across the globe. Throughout the narrative corpus, he adeptly brings a scalpel to the silences that shroud the taboo issues in our societies, breaking open—like the lancing of a long-festered boil in the armpit of a grown man—the hidden pains that afflict our societies and letting the pus ooze out for the sake of collective reckoning and wellbeing. And even though these “silent pains” are drawn from the fabric of familiar life, they do not unfold in predictable ways. Readers will be drawn into the unexpected twists and turns the stories take on their journey toward disclosure and healing. It is a great fortune to have Oumar Farouk Sesay so dexterouslybreak these stories to the world.

Ambrose Massaquoi, Ph.D.

Honorary Fellow of Writing, Univ. of Iowa

Author, Along the Peal of Drums (SLWS)

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