Aminata Conteh-Biger on Healing Through Memoir

In 1999, Aminata Conteh-Biger was kidnapped from her family, and held captive by rebels during the civil war. Years later, she wrote a memoir Rising Heart, a memoir in which she shares the story of how she was rescued by UNHCR, found a new life in Australia, and giving back to Sierra Leone through her maternal health foundation. For Aminata Conteh-Biger, writing the memoir was a path to healing and a way to come to terms with what she faced during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Now, Aminata gives back to her country through the Aminata Maternal Foundation, to support maternal health in Sierra Leone. In this interview, Aminata Conteh-Biger shares how she rebuilt her life as a refugee, and wrote through trauma.

Poda-Poda:Thank you for granting us this interview. Tell us about yourself, your background, and your journey as a writer.

Aminata Conteh-Biger: I was born in Freetown and grew up in Kissy. I was raised by my father Pa Conteh, along with my 3 siblings. In 1999, I was kidnapped by the rebels, torn from my father’s hand. I was held by the rebels for months and released as part of an exchange for supplies. In 2020, I released my memoir, Rising Heart, with Pan Macmillan Australia. I wrote Rising Heart with my ghost writer Juliet Rieden, a highly respected journalist and author.  I always wanted to write a book, and had many offers to do so over the years, but I did not want to do it until I had given something back to my home country Sierra Leone.

Poda-Poda: Tells us about your memoir, Rising Heart. What inspired you to write it and share your story?

ACB: I had always wanted to tell my story. I wanted to write it for the women of Sierra Leone who experienced the same as what I went through, and for the men who committed the atrocities against us to understand what they took from us. I also wanted to write it to show the world the realities of war and conflict – and the ongoing experience - of African nations. I feel very strongly there is not nearly enough general awareness of the challenges endured by African people, both now and in recent and past history.

Poda-Poda: We recently commemorated the National Day of Reconciliation in Sierra Leone on January 18th. You have shared your story through your memoir. For many survivors of the war, sharing the story of what happened to them is a difficult process. We do not have adequate psychosocial services in Sierra Leone to fully deal with the trauma of war amputees, victims of sexual violence, and refugees. What can we do, as a society, to help heal through our trauma, even when we lack those professional resources?

ACB: The answer to this is in the government. It is the duty and responsibility of our leaders to look after the wellbeing of their people. People in a position of power must create and make available safe spaces for the vulnerable, in order to allow them to live their best life.

In a country like Sierra Leone, where there is such recent national trauma, there must be assistance and services for them. Current services in Sierra Leone are not strong and there is one major reason why. There is a lack of acknowledgement and awareness of the war and its impact, not just from the government, but from the population as a whole.  

Poda-Poda: There was so much unimaginable trauma because of the war, and so many of us still carry that and walk with that. How can we carry that trauma, and still try to change the story of our country for good?

ACB: This is difficult to answer, as we Sierra Leoneans can’t even face the truth of what happened to us. I have witnessed for myself the lack of knowledge young people have of recent events.

This lack of knowledge is because the previous generation, the people who lived through it, do not discuss the realities of what happened. So, how can younger people learn their own country’s history? As a nation, we cannot heal from trauma when the events and actions that caused the trauma are not acknowledged, let alone discussed amongst families or taught in schools.

Africans are so strong, and have faced so much adversity.  I feel this inner strength needs to be applied to having uncomfortable, upsetting conversations in order to change the story of our country for good. Even here in Australia, where Sierra Leoneans support my foundation work, I promise you, maybe only two Sierra Leoneans would have bought my book, Rising Heart. They are scared to face my story because it will remind them of theirs.

Poda-Poda: Tell us about your work with maternal and child health in Sierra Leone. How did that come about and what are your plans for your organization?

ACB: The Aminata Maternal Foundation came about following my near-death experience while giving birth to my daughter Sarafina in 2012. Sarafina suffered from shoulder dystocia at the time.

During my pregnancy and Sarafina’s birth, I had access to high-quality healthcare here in Australia, like all women do. This compelled me to give back to the women and girls of Sierra Leone and help to improve the unacceptable maternal health and infant mortality rates. I immediately felt a sense of responsibility. My papa always taught us, “we get, we must give back”. He showed his children that it is more of a blessing to give than to receive. I do not have any family in Sierra Leone and this actually inspired me to go back home to contribute, especially because of my two children, Sarafina and Matisse. I want them to know where their mama comes from because I incredibly proud of my homeland Sierra Leone.

My vision now is to buy the hotel in Freetown my father owned and make it a hospital. But before then, my goal is to get as many midwives as possible trained, and hopefully open a children’s ward in the Aberdeen Women’s Centre so the staff can increase their capacity for check-ups and vaccines. My foundation has been working with the Aberdeen Women’s Centre since 2014, but I need the government to help us get this land. The funds are ready but we need land.

Poda-Poda: How did writing your story save your life?

ACB: It didn’t save my life. However, writing my book was a very important process, as it allowed me to establish the fact that I own my story – my story does not own me. I am not ashamed of what happened to me. I am proud of my scars because they have shaped and continue to shape the human being that I am. I always knew I was born to do something good and greater. My grandpa and my older brother, Alieu, always spoke so powerfully on my life ever since I was a baby. So despite my story, I was born for something greater, and I’ve always believed it is as a humanitarian.

Find out more about the Aminata Maternal Foundation at aminatamaternalfoundation.org

Akindele Decker on Sierra Leonean History and Patriotism

Sierra Leoneans have contributed in rich and diverse ways to global history and culture, from flying fighter jets in World War II, to building global fashion brands. Sierra Leonean-Americans Akindele Decker and Adrian Labor are on a quest to document these contributions and make them accessible to everyone. They have co-authored a book “20 Icons of Sierra Leone Who Shaped History”, along with the children’s version, to highlight the historic connections and contributions of Sierra Leoneans in world history and culture. Poda-Poda Stories interviewed Akindele Decker, a poet and writer, to talk about his writing journey, and the new book.

Poda-Poda Stories: Thank you Akindele Decker, for joining us in the Poda-Poda today. Tell us a bit about yourself, your background as a writer and a Creative.

AD: I really appreciate the opportunity. I am a big fan of Poda-Poda Stories. I think it's a very revolutionary venture and it’s needed. So, about myself. I was born in Freetown. I am Krio  with Fula, Themne and Yoruba ancestry. I attended the Sierra Leone Grammar School, and I was there for about two years, before relocating to the US. Growing up, I was inspired to write because I had a book of folk tales by my grandfather, called Tales of the Forest where I learned about characters, like Bra Rabbit and Bra Spider, before I started   watching Disney. So, I was more in tune with characters that I could relate with from my own country.  I started writing poetry around ninth grade and by 12th grade I had about 300 poems. A lot of my poems are inspired by my heritage and living as an African immigrant in America. I think the only way I've been able to express that is through storytelling, poetry, and short stories whenever I can.

Poda-Poda: Tell us about your book Sierra Leone Icons. How did this project come about and why is it being published now?

AD: My co-author, Adrian Labor and I were doing genealogical research on our families and Adrian found a lot of fascinating things about his family history. He was able to trace his family roots from West Africa to Virginia and back to Freetown through the middle passage. The more we talked about our family history, the more we realized that it was almost impossible to talk about it without talking about Sierra Leone history, and the many connections between Sierra Leone and the black diaspora. Initially we both had a strong eagerness to develop these family histories into something we can pass down to our children and their children.

But the moment we came across the history and information about Sierra Leone, we were stunned that a lot of it was not mainstream, especially in terms of access to the younger generation. So, we came up with the project to highlight  icons of Sierra Leone. Each of these icons would be a gateway for young Sierra Leoneans to then go deeper into Sierra Leone history.

Poda-Poda: How long did this project take?

AD : It took a very long year (  laughs) . I  travelled to Sierra Leone in 2019 and since my return in February 2020, until  December 2020 , we  worked  on this project. It took a lot of research. Adrian is a civil engineer, and I am a creative professional. We were spending so much time on this, but we couldn’t stop. The more we researched, the more we found out about Sierra Leoneans in World War II for example, and we wanted to document these things. We looked everywhere we could. We looked at primary sources and old newspapers and academic books. We did research everywhere. We culled academic journals and documented as much as we could. One of the challenges with that specifically was that we are not scholars or academics and a lot of written history about Sierra Leone has been done by academics who spend years on this topic. We were just two ordinary guys that  had a passion and we wanted to write something about our history and make it available. So, there was definitely a lot of challenges getting the information, and also processing the information as well into something that people could read easily. We had to make sure that we were being as accurate as possible and being able to purge out the colonial stuff, as well as   incorrect spelling of names, places, and incorrect accounts of events. It was a very interesting process.

Poda-Poda: What do you hope that publishing this book will achieve?

AD: Good question. I think for one, we want students in schools to have access to this book, and for the books to be available in libraries and  places where students can access them in Sierra Leone.

We want young people to develop awareness of Sierra Leone’s contribution to world history as well. I think what a lot of these stories tell us is that about every point of history, Sierra Leoneans have been there. We've been active, we've been a participant, a contributor to history, and not just as byproducts of it.

So I want young people in Freetown, Moyamba, Rotifunk ,Kono, everywhere, to  become aware and conscious that their community actually is active in this world. I think that could help their empowerment and development. We also need more children’s books about Sierra Leonean history so our children will know these heroes.

For me, I want to see more young Sierra Leoneans be inspired to tell our stories. Like I said, Adrian and I are not scholars. We are just two ordinary guys who had stories to tell and we took a leap.  But there was a fear for me, especially as a writer, on how Sierra Leoneans would receive it. However, we took the leap. We didn't go with a traditional publisher. We chose to self-publish the book, so there was, there was definitely a lot of challenges there as well.

Poda-Poda Stories: What can we learn from these icons highlighted in your book about what it means to be patriotic?

AD: The first thing is to take a leap in doing what you feel is right for your country. No matter where you are, what discipline you're working in or what challenges you're facing, take a leap.

Learn from Adelaide Casely-Hayford, for example, she wanted to see a   vocational and technical school available for girls.  She did it, even with limited financial support at the time, she took a leap.

There’s also Harry Washington who was an ex- enslaved person of George Washington. He was part of the American revolution. He fled the plantation, fought in the war for the British, because they promised him his freedom if he did so. He eventually  settled with the other settlers in an established Freetown in 1792.  The British then who had told the settlers that they were going to come to Freetown and govern themselves, decided instead to govern them. Eventually in 1800, Harry Washington and a few others revolted against the British.  I always say that that was maybe the first effort towards independence early on, because the settlers wrote their own constitution.

Also, learn from someone like Dr. Arthur   Abraham who wanted to portray a clear, authentic representation of Sierra Leone history. He advocated  for that all the way, till when he passed.

Let us just start with just that little step of doing what we know is right for Sierra Leone and doing our best at it.

Get the book and the children’s version on amazon !

Author bios:

Adrian Q. Labor extended his interest for everything Sierra Leonean by taking up two new hobbies over time alongside his current profession as a Civil Engineer.  His first hobby focused on building an online genealogy of the founding settlers of the city of Freetown. He then followed up with a second one to conduct literature research on the Icons of Sierra Leone who shaped the country's diverse national and rich international history. Through the insights gained, he was drawn to the opportunity to create this illustrated history book series. This first book, “20 Icons of Sierra Leone Who Shaped History”, which he co-authors, remakes historic connections and highlights contributions of national ancestors of all young adults of Sierra Leonean parentage.

Akindele Decker is a poet and writer born in Sierra Leone. His first breakthrough in poetry was at the age of 15, with his first published Poem, ‘What If’ in 1998. His poems cover topics dealing with the middle-passage, identity, and African history. In 2004, Akindele received an Editors Choice Award for outstanding achievement in Poetry from the International Library of Poetry. In 2012, he performed “Dancing in Blue Waters” at Busboy & Poets in Washington D.C., chronicling the middle passage of the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. One of his most recent work was in 2016 with GWB Commission’s ONE Campaign, celebrating the diverse ancestral heritage of Sierra Leoneans.

Oumar Farouk Sesay on the Transformative Power of Poetry

Oumar Farouk Sesay is a published poet, novelist, and playwright. He was resident playwright of Bai Bureh Theatre in the '80s, and he has written several plays. He has been published in many anthologies of Sierra Leonean poets, including Lice in the Lion's Mane, Songs That Pour the Heart and Kalashnikov In The Sun. He is the President of PEN, Sierra Leone chapter. Using vivid imagery and metaphors, Sesay’s poems are beautifully woven, richly capturing the heartbeat of Sierra Leone. It was an honor to interview him, and he shared his creative journey with Poda-Poda Stories.

Poda-Poda: Thank you for granting me this interview. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your career as a poet.

FS: Thank you very much and I am delighted to a part of this. I started writing as early as in my teen years when I was in sixth form. Those were the days of theater groups in Sierra Leone. I was commissioned to write a play for Bai Bureh Theater Group, which was performed at City Hall, and that was my maiden work as a writer. Then I started dabbling with poetry here and there, but not in a serious way as I had engaged with theater. It was later in life that I started writing poetry. Then after university, I worked as a journalist briefly, for local newspapers like The Chronicle newspaper, and International papers like West Africa magazine. Later, the calling for poetry was so strong, so I became a poet. Occasionally I do articles for newspapers, but I am much more engaged in poetry writing than other forms of writing.

I came to the U.S. and I was fortunate to publish my first collection of poems “Salute To The Remains of a Peasant”. Those are poems that captured, events during the war in Sierra Leone.  I later published another collection of poems, written post-war poems and some other themes of corruption and antisocial activities within the country. That collection was “The Edge Of A Cry.” Then after that, I was able to publish my first novel, “Landscape of Memory”, which addresses the theme of the war and its impact in Sierra Leone. I was also a Cadbury visiting Fellow, at the Birmingham University in the U.K and a fellow at the Baptist University in Hong Kong.

Poda-Poda: You mentioned you were into journalism and then you took up poetry later. How did that transition happen?

FS: It is difficult to place a finger on it, because poetry has a magnet that pulls a writer than other forms of writing. I felt preoccupied with issues happening around me, mostly during the war, and I started capturing it in metaphors that were so strong that I thought if I put them in prose, I might not have been able to capture them as exactly as they were.

Poda-Poda: Tell us about your new book, 400 Years of Servitude. Why did you decide to write this anthology?

FS: 400 Years of Servitude is mostly a collection of poems that deal with the theme of race relations and the impact it has on African Americans and Africans. There are cultural forces in international politics that tend to dictate the way we (black people) are treated all over the world. For example, policy makers in America and in the Western world, have a tendency of treating Africans in a manner akin to the way African Americans here are treated, like a lower caste of people. I was basically trying to see a correlation between the treatment of Africans and African Americans here in America. I saw that the connection is race. I started putting together poems that largely deal with race and race relations, and I did a span of 400 years, from the time the first slave was transported from Africa to the New World to date. There are poems that deal with the Middle Passage, and that deal with African Americans. That is why I called it 400 years of servitude.

Poda-Poda:  That is a very good title.  I interviewed Ishmael Beah and asked him a similar question to this: As a black writer living in the U.S, do you think it's your duty to write about global blackness or the global perception of blackness?

FS:  Well, I think so. I wrote a poem about race relations called “The Look”. When you go into places here in the US , you are given a look that carries with it the burden of servitude, the look carries  the historical baggage that was given to our brothers when they were chained in the plantations of yesteryears.

This look follows like a chain on your soul wherever you go. It became apparent that my African-American brothers were also giving me a look of a similar slant as if I am the Judas who sold a brother for thirty pieces of silver.

An excerpt from the poem is “brother, don't look at me. The look that they look at me for looking like you.”

Yes. the question of race relations must be addressed by authors for the benefit of the entire race. Writers do not write in a vacuum, you must really make sure your work has affinity to the reality around you, and race relations concerns writers everywhere in the world. I think as Sierra Leonean writers, we should be concerned with that too.

Poda-Poda: Your work has a lot of imagery and touches on a lot of themes. Some recurring themes in your work are patriotism and healing. How do you think literature, especially poetry, can help heal our nation and move us forward?

FS:  Interestingly, we had a group that was formed during the war that was called Falui Poetry Society. Most of the prominent Sierra Leonean poets were members of that group, and we were able to organize poetry reading in public places and in private places. The reason being, poetry itself has a healing power.

As a collective, we published our poems at a time when the Special Court began in Freetown. Fortunately, the prosecutor, David Crane, was present when we launched the book that we published. “Songs That Pour The Earth” was the first collection we ever put together as an anthology that captured the poems of the war. He was at the launch and he bought the book. During the opening remarks of the Special Court, he read a poem by Sydnella Shooter, which chronicled the atrocities during the rebel war.

So as poets, we are witnesses. Just as Walt Whitman and other poets were witnesses to the American civil war, Sierra Leonean poets bore witness of the war in Sierra Leone. And we captured it in ways that will forever be there for posterity to see. We happened to be the first prosecution witness called upon to account for what we saw and felt during the eleven-year war.

Poda-Poda:  You were a resident Playwright for the Bai Bureh Theatre, and you have also published several books. Of course, it is not a secret that it is a challenge being a creative person in Sierra Leone. What are some of the challenges that you faced and how have you been able to hold on to your craft for so long?

FS: From a personal point of view, writing is a very private project, a very private exercise. It starts as a migration from your mind to the public and that route is hurdle- prone in ways that affect the tenor and texture of the work created.

In the creative process you sometimes think in your native tongue and haul the thought to the page in another – this process done mostly at a subconscious level. You do not even know you are doing that. You may not even know that you are doing that until an idea from one culture refuses to yield meaning in another language.   In the process of doing that, the question of how you maintain the balance to make sure that the purity of your thoughts is not is not diminished in another language?  Those are creative challenges and poetic license sometimes help us navigate through those hurdles.  

The bigger challenge though, is how seriously people in Sierra Leone and mostly other African countries take their writers. Writers have been on the forefront of the struggle for the independence of the continent. If you check South African history for example, writers like Dennis Brutus played an important role in making sure the of apartheid was exposed. In Nigeria, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe contributed immensely in enhancing the creative image of the country and in promoting democracy. Thanks to them the expectation of the public from writers goes beyond the literary. The image of writers as agents of change put them in direct confrontation with authority sometimes with disastrous effect to the writers.

 We come into writing with the onus of not only doing art for art's sake but with a manifesto to usher change. Ours is not art for art sake but art you can use to usher change; those who wants the status quo to remain unchanged perceive writers as opponents.

And of course, the question of readership is another big problem that we have. Most people started reading me when one of my poems made it in the West African exams’ syllabus- hence reading me becomes a matter passing or failing exams.

So, we must create a climate whereby we grow big at home, then seek recognition outside. In our own case, it’s the other way around. I think it’s because we have the “made in  UK mentality” wherein we grew up buying sneakers that are made in the UK, so we also think that our talent must be made somewhere else before it is respected at home.

Poda-Poda:  That is also an issue that's very interesting because I do agree with you that we tend to value creative work that’s acknowledged in the US or the UK, while people are making good work here at home too. That’s why I want Poda-Poda Stories to highlight the work being done at home too.

FS: The work Poda-Poda is doing is so good. There was a famous Sierra Leonean playwright, Kolossa John Kargbo. He was one of the best back in the day. He died in Nigeria and he was buried there. And just this year his play “Let Me Die Alone” is also been included in the West African exam syllabus. He also wrote Tabita Broke Ose, a comedy, and I’ve seen fragments of his work being projected in some social media posts lately, and I wonder about the fate of his many manuscripts.  

We must have pride in who we are as a people. It's very important that some of us keep writing. It is difficult for a nation to exceed the potential of the story they narrate to themselves. The stories we tell each other, the stories we narrate of ourselves determines who we are as a nation.  A story that constantly says “Salone nor betteh” might just create a failed state.

Poda-Poda:  In what ways do you think literature, and the creative arts, has the function to shape our society as Sierra Leoneans, especially for the younger generation ?

FS:  When we start to use language in the abstract, we start to use language to imagine a reality that is not yet in existence. Language give us the ability to create fiction. It is the creation of the fiction that sets human beings apart from other species.  

In A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Harari says because we can use language, we are able to create that which does not exist. And we create institutions that are creation of our imagination. We talk about human rights for example. You know, these are not concrete things, but because we are able to use the language to create that, we are able to organize society around the concepts that are not concrete.  That is the power of language. We can imagine things that are not in existence and we can use that imagination as a signpost to guide us into greater good. Literature inspires, and it helps young people to imagine. For most people, the truth of fiction is the only truth they cling to in their journey through life.

Find out more about Oumar Farouk Sesay’s work at farouksesay.com

Questions and interview by Ngozi Cole.

Ishmael Beah on Storytelling and Activism

Ishmael Beah is a Sierra Leonean novelist and human rights activist. His memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, details his journey from a child soldier during Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war, to a new life in the United States. He has gone on to publish two more books, Radiance of Tomorrow, and Little Family. Beah’s stories always bring into focus the realities of people considered to be on the margins and give readers a deeper understanding of the complexities of everyday lives. In this conversation with Poda-Poda Stories (via skype), he shares why it is important to write such stories, and why we need more Sierra Leonean storytellers on the global literary scene. 

Poda-Poda: Thank you Ishmael Beah for being a part of this. If you could just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your background.

IB: I am Ishmael Beah. I am a Sierra Leonean. I am a New York Times and international Bestselling Author. I’ve written three books to date. The first one was out in 2007, called A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, that recounted my experiences of the war in Sierra Leone. I then continued with a novel called Radiance of Tomorrow that looked at how people return to places that have been devastated by war. And the latest book is also novel called Little Family, that is set in an unnamed African country, but Sierra Leone is the main inspiration behind it, and it came out at the end of April this year (2020) in the midst of all this crisis. I am also a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador, specifically for children affected by war globally. Lastly and most importantly, I am a husband and father of three wonderful children, which of everything that I have achieved, my remarkable family is the one thing that I am the proudest of.

Poda-Poda: Amazing! Tell us about your new book, Little Family. Why did you decide to write this story?

IB: Little Family is about five young people, who have decided to ostracize themselves from society, and live at the margins, to seek freedom, and define what that means to them, in their own way. Over the years, I have lived in Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and back home again in Sierra Leone, and I was observing how young people are struggling to define themselves.

There are local traditions, systems and values that have collapsed, but then there’s also an importation of new values and ideas from foreigners coming in. So young people find themselves in between, trying to decide what they want to embrace. Do they want to be more traditional or do they want to be more modern, and what that reality means? So, it was really about trying to answer that question that I then created Little Family. I wanted to see whether this is possible, and if it’s not, what is the burden of history?  What is the burden of the place you live in and how do you unshackle yourself from it, and be free in your own way?

Poda-Poda: In this book you’re talking about a group of homeless children. They are the heroes of this story. You really illustrate the humanity of people we often consider to be on the margins of society. These are young people we see and encounter every day, but we don’t really have a window into their lives, and in this book, they have created a space for themselves. I was wondering whether this was a metaphor for building a new future for ourselves, especially as young people in Sierra Leone?

IB:  Absolutely! This was a metaphor, but this was also based on certain observations of reality. I think whenever you decide to ostracize yourself from society, or you don’t like what’s going on, you build your own little family. You build your own group of people who are like-minded, who think the same way, because if you express your feelings and your thoughts to other people who don’t understand, you feel judgement. As human beings, this is how we are. When we live in an environment without a supportive mechanism, we recreate a space that allows that for us. I also wanted to show that people who are at the margins of society are intelligent, but we don’t often think of them that way.

For example, if you encounter a guy who’s selling tissue paper on the street. Every morning, this guy goes to the big store to buy tissue paper, so he can sell it to you and for your convenience of not leaving your car and going to the store. So, this guy is an economist, he understands the market space. But we do not give credit to the intelligence of what it means to survive. When you are surviving, you are an astute observer of a society that’s thriving, because you see the cracks in it, and it’s through those cracks that you survive. So, you’re more aware of it, than the person who is supposedly better off than you.

I wanted to show that intelligence is also not based on education. Education is just so that you can join the workforce. Intelligence is something that you actually have.  So, I wanted to show that there’s brilliance on this continent. Every child that you meet that is fifteen, or sixteen years old, already has a PhD in economics, psychology, and sociology, just to survive daily. I wanted to celebrate that.

Poda-Poda: It’s good to highlight that people on the margins are very intelligent and street smart. It’s also good to show the darker sides as well. You’ve highlighted sexual assault and gender-based violence in your past books, and recently Sierra Leone has been rocked by news of rape and gender-based violence cases. I was wondering what your take was on that, because the people in Little Family are also at the receiving end of the darker sides of our society which include rape and sexual violence, but it’s not always that their stories are brought to the fore. What is your commentary on that?

IB: It’s been very difficult for me to think about this, because I am aware that Sierra Leone has had cases of rampant sexual assault, particularly towards very young girls. The last time I was in Sierra Leone, I was out in Makeni, and there were so many cases where even teachers were abusing their students in schools. Through UNICEF I was dealing with a lot of these cases. I also have two girls, one is six and the other is four, and I think of them when I hear these stories. In my work, I’ve tried to show how, in Sierra Leone , there has been a behaviour that has been accepted, especially from the male point of view, to sexualize and disrespect women and girls, even when they are as young as three years old.  For example, you’ll go to parties and the music is playing, and someone will say “ ay bo, call da pikin leh e kam shake am for we” . This is where it begins. What we don’t realise is that we are doing certain things that are leading to this. While we need to educate young boys to respect young women, there are even older women who also perpetuate these attitudes and beliefs. I have witnessed a grandmother, a mother or an aunt tell a girl “tell da you man de leh e sen for me ya”. So there are so many things that we need to work on. And it really needs to come from respecting women, understanding that women are not products to be married off, or to have as girlfriends, but that also they are intelligent members of society that contribute to it. They’ve done it in history, and they will continue to do so.   

When I write, for example in Little Family, the main character is Khoudiemata, who decided that she is going to be as free as possible, that nobody is going to make her what she doesn’t want to become. So, it’s also good for young women and men to read literature and see stories of women that are not highlighted enough. This( sexual violence) is a very serious issue that needs to be taken up by the entire country, and we need to be honest about what’s going on.

Poda-Poda: And that’s also the power of literature, it gives us the chance to be open and honest about things that are often considered a taboo. Going back to the theme of storytelling and narratives, in your books you’ve highlighted not just your own experiences, but the experiences of many young people in Sierra Leone.  In our attempt to share those stories with a wider audience, how do we stay true to our experiences?  

IB: Well I started writing particularly out of that frustration. I started writing because there were a lot of people writing about Sierra Leone that were not Sierra Leoneans. They visited for maybe one or two weeks and then wrote books about Sierra Leone, that didn’t quite paint the full picture. People come to our country and then all of a sudden are seen as the ‘experts’ of our lives, and they shape the way the world conceives who we are. So, my writing really came out of that frustration.

My writing has been to undo some of those things and put the narrative in our hands. We should tell our own stories, our incapabilities and shortcomings. We should be in charge of telling those stories, because when we tell our own stories, we give ourselves agency, we show how multifaceted we are.  This is very important, because it not only shapes how people view us, but also how we think of ourselves. So, I’ve been a big champion of that.  In all the books that I’ve written, none of them are set in the US, all of them are set in Sierra Leone and similar countries. And this is very deliberate. Not that I don’t have stories to tell about the US, but there are other books that tell those stories.

 I want Sierra Leone to have a stronghold in literature. I want other young people to see that’s possible to put that intelligence on paper and keep record of our experiences.  When you write, you always have to write about things that are bigger than yourself. And I think that is why my work has been so successful, because when people read it, they know I’m writing about something that’s bigger than me.  And for young writers in Sierra Leone, this is what I would say to them:  Don’t write because you want to be this “superstar” on your own. Write because you want to see the beauty and complexities of the society we live in, and how people can see themselves in literature.  For example, when I write, I use our names for my characters: Khoudiemata, Mohamed, Salamatu, these are names that are not usually in literature, and I want them to be in literature. And when a girl named Salamatu reads a novel, she’ll say “oh, there’s someone like me”.

Poda-Poda: There have been protests in the United States that have reverberated around the world. The Black Lives Matter protests is fast becoming a global movement. As a black writer living in the US, do you feel a sense of duty to tell the stories of the different layers of blackness, and make those different connections?

IB: Absolutely. Racism is not just an American thing, it’s a global thing. People dislike you because of how you look, because of your blackness. And when it comes to that, it does not matter whether you’re from Sierra Leone, or wherever else. One of the earliest police shootings of black people in New York, was Amadou Diallo, who was from Guinea. And when the police shot him, nobody asked where he was from. He was black, and that is the first thing they saw. So, this idea of blackness is a global thing. Because of how black people have been portrayed through time, through the Point of View ( POV)  of white people, we are not portrayed as people who have intelligence, as people who can succeed .

For me as a writer, there’s a burden and a desire to undo that and to show people the multiple experiences of blackness. Going back to my work, my stories usually don’t have any white people in it and if they do, they are not shown as “white saviours” because we save ourselves. So, I want to show that we can exists without the POV of white people. We don’t need them to live or imagine, we’ve always lived and imagined as people.

Poda-Poda: Speaking of blackness and visibility, and looking inwards, how can we make those connections as Sierra Leonean creatives at home and in the diaspora, while decentring the white gaze and focusing on ourselves?

IB: That is what I’ve been doing over the years. Every time I put something out, I try to collaborate with other black writers, so that we can have more of us telling more of our stories. Clearly, I am one person, so my work will always be from my own point of view. So, I’ve been trying to encourage young writers back home to also put their work out there.

One of the things that I did in my new book is that I wanted the characters to have a visual representation. I asked my publisher to look for an African black woman creator (illustration and drawing) to draw the characters in Little Family. And luckily, they found Ngadi Smart, a Sierra Leonean illustrator. And she drew these amazing photos of the characters. So now the publishers know that there is this Sierra Leonean illustrator who we can hire for my next projects.  For me, each time I do a project, I throw a hook out there to bring somebody to the forefront. And it’s very important to do that so that people can see the breadth of our intelligence on the continent.

Poda-Poda: We definitely need more of us telling out stories. What advice would you give to aspiring writers from Sierra Leone?

IB: Read a lot! Read a lot of what other people are writing. If you can, find a mentor and a circle of people who can review your work for you. Write your own truth, write your own stories. Don’t let anybody tell you that you cannot do it. Because I also know that we come from a culture where, there’s very little encouragement in the creative space. People will try to push you down or say that you are not good enough.  When I first expressed that I wanted to write, I had some of my friends in Sierra Leone who tried to discourage me. But I thought to myself “why not?”. So, find people who are going to encourage you for your craft and not people who are going to push you down. You have to surround yourself with people who can empower you. Your platform (Poda-Poda) is a remarkable one, and there are people creating these sorts of mediums, for people to showcase their work. So, write, read, and find spaces that will support you.

Poda-Poda: A question I always ask writers is, how has writing saved your life?

IB: It saved my life in many ways. How I started writing was that I came to the US in 1998, and I was adopted into a white Jewish family. And I had left the war in Sierra Leone, and I had nothing. All I had was my Sierra Leone passport. And it was very difficult to get into school, because I didn’t have a report card or any school records. And even though I could stand in front of people and speak English to them very well, it wasn’t sufficient for them, because they still needed proof that I had been in school before. So, I started writing to show that parts of me had existed before people met me in the US. And I remember my first essay was titled “Why I do not have a report card”, because most people kept asking me. This essay was a window for me to explain that when you’re running for your life, you don’t’ think of your report card !

So, writing for was a way to show who I was before people in the US met me, and to correct whatever perception they had of other people from my country. Writing has saved my life by allowing me to show people that I am as human, as intelligent, and as complicated as they are and that people from my country are not one-dimensional. For example, when we had Ebola, there were so many western journalists writing a lot of nonsense about Sierra Leone, I had to jump in, and I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post. So, writing has always been a way to reassert our humanity in other people’s mindsets.

Poda-Poda: What is the one thing you miss about Sierra Leone?

IB: Oh, I miss everything. There’s something about Sierra Leone that you cannot find anywhere else, at least for me. Everybody is a natural comedian and natural storyteller, and every encounter is always interesting, especially for me as a writer.  There’s so much passion in everything. Even in our difficulties, we have passion and humor. I miss that. I miss that people have discussions about the most meaningless things. I miss the food. I miss our mannerisms, how laidback people are. I miss speaking Krio. I miss speaking Mende. Our languages are constantly evolving and there’s so much musicality in them. I can go on and on. I miss everything.  

Find our more about Ishmael Beah’s work on ishmaelbeah.com .

Questions and Interview by Ngozi Cole.