In Sierra Leone

From Publishers Weekly
Anthropologist, poet and novelist Jackson returned to Sierra Leone in 2002, after some 30 years’ absence, at a time when the West African country was emerging from a violent 11-year civil war. In the 1970s, Jackson had lived among Sierra Leone’s Kuranko people, conducting ethnographic fieldwork. He returned to ghostwrite the autobiography of his old friend, the eminent politician Sewa Bockarie Marah—known as "SB"—leader of Sierra Leone’s People’s Party. Jackson was eager also to record the stories of ordinary people, visiting amputee and refugee camps in order to gather their horrific survival stories. This book mingles the two projects; it captures both the intensity of high politics, by relating SB’s (otherwise unwritten) biography, and the traumas of the common people. Attempting to make sense of the roots of rebel violence, Jackson focuses on intermale relations, in SB’s family and in the tapestry of Kuranko social life in general. "Acts of violence are prepared over long periods of time, often in the subconscious," he writes. At what point did the traditional reciprocity of village life fail a younger generation of men who craved power? How do the anxieties of powerlessness and marginalization play into the dynamics of revolution? Citing Hannah Arendt and Pierre Bourdieu, among other philosophers, Jackson shies away from easy generalizations. Instead, he offers a more tentative and open-ended meditation on a country whose belief systems, folktales and values he has studied extensively. The result is a melancholic, reflective and informed work that will fascinate readers wishing to learn more about West African politics and people. B&w photos, maps. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In 2002, Sierra Leone, the small West African country, was about to announce the end of its civil war (which had raged since 1991). The author, a professor of anthropology (and novelist) who had spent time in the country on and off since the late 1960s, returned to Sierra Leone to help an old friend with his autobiography. Sewa Bockarie (S. B.) Marah was a significant voice in the country's politics, and Jackson's memoir combines S. B.'s story with his own. Jackson writes of the victims of the civil war, the people of Sierra Leone, ordinary folks caught up in extraordinary circumstances. He writes of the political leaders, men of supposed power who found themselves powerless when it counted. He writes of tragedy, desolation, and destruction (the recent history of Sierra Leona is not a happy one). It's a story told in two voices, the author's and his friend's, the outsider and the insider. Choosing substance and intellectual discussion over cheap dramatic moments, the author has crafted a sociopolitical memoir that's educational and memorable. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


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In this rambling but ultimately compelling essay, Jackson, an anthropologist long acquainted with Sierra Leone, combines a fragmentary history of the country with a description of its people and its countryside as they emerge from a nightmarish civil war, peppering his tale with ruminations on the nature of anthropology. Jackson visited Sierra Leone in 2002, ostensibly to help his old friend S. B. Marah, a prominent politician approaching the end of his career, write his autobiography. Several lengthy excerpts from their interviews make up the core of this book, offering arresting details of the life and times of a classic African "big man" and illuminating the nature of postcolonial politics in Sierra Leone. Readers who want an explicit explanation for the collapse will be disappointed; indeed, Jackson seems to believe that a rational account is impossible. Yet it is telling that Marah's world-view is dominated by personality and social relations, with political power a means of rewarding one's self and one's kin rather than of promoting a sense of national identity or purpose.


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