Word from the Editor

Sengbe Boakai K. Khasu

Film editor Sengbe Boakai K. Khasu brings us the word. “Yor! Yor!!!!! Yoooooooooooooor!

Book Reviews

Thomas Jaye

A Review of Yash Tandon’s “Ending Aid Dependence” (Fahamu Books …

Althea Romeo-Mark

A Quest of the Heart and Mind: A Review of Patricia Jabbeh Wesley’s “The River is Rising.”

Creative Non-Fiction

yassira l. diggs

My Liberianness… “I’ve wrestled with the idea of home from as far back as I can remember.”

Vamba Sherif

Tribulations of a Migrant Writer… “In the late sixties, a young African of Malian origin sent his

Charmie Snetter

All my skin folk ain’t all my kin folk… “I was born in Liberia twenty-three years ago and have

Essays

Eva Acqui

Liberian Poets Today: And So They See the World, and the World Sees Them . . .

Doeba Bropleh

Toting Hammocks: Toward a New Cultural Consciousness in Liberia

D. Elwood Dunn

Overcoming Alienation and Building National Community in Liberia

James Fasuekoi

Kendeja: The Story of “Sacred Land” Sold to U.S. BET Founder

Ute Klissenbauer

From “Kendeja 1977″ to Anxiety for Cultural Self-determination in Liberia Today

Sakui Malakpa

Toward Cultural Pluralism in Education

Timothy Wlue Nevin

The National Cultural Troupe Dance Dramas (“Ballets”)

Robtel Neajai Pailey

A Diaspora Returns: Liberia Then and Now… “Standing at the apex of Ducor in central…

Fiction

Stephanie C. Horton

One Small Long Death… “They were given new names. “Mary, David, Esther, Paul, James,

Sam Wolo

Novel Excerpt - In the Crosshairs … “The West African Coastline, 12:36 a.m. (local time)”

Interviews

Gbessie Kiazolu

Robtel Pailey sat down with the venerable dramaturge/dancer-choreographer …

Nimely Napla

Esailama Diof talks with Nimely Napla: Legacy of Kendeja in Liberia and the Diaspora

James Emmanuel Roberts

Stephanie Horton talks with Kona Khasu, going back in time, uncovering buried history…

Photo Essay

Elma Shaw

Performance Pieces: Instruments from Liberia’s Cultural Tradition

Poetry

George Crayton

We remember when we walked across free land/Held our people together and were rulers of our

James Dwalu

The acrid scent fills the air/Near the garbage heap/We held our breath

Saki Golafale

And all our blood stained pilots/ Who could no longer find the compass / Plunged our society

Musue Haddad

The Corrupter, official, imperial, stately, ordinary /Sleek, persuasive, appealing; the fatal

Monica Horton-Knuckles

Long before the sun, Outside Child will rise,/ fold her mat, tie her lappa / and wipe the sleep

Miatta Kawinzi

they call it history, what you wrote that day, /but yours was not a history

Saah Millimono

I have worked my bones to breaking point/ And have grown a hunchback;/ And have earned

Emmanuel Morgan

Strange fires burn the Land/ Strange voices fill the air/ And strange songs are sung/

Alexander Queh

O . . . life . . . O . . . life, the cheeks of the unknowns are wet and saturated with tears./

M. Woryonwon Roberts

The festering sun/ Drinks the ditch of water,/ Hardens the red mud. / The smart city mouse,/

Momo Sheriff

Kendeja/ You stand ruined/ By people who, yes who/ Profess to be yours./ Your identity has

Othello Weh

We were blinded with cataracts/ Walking with canes/ Shackled in chains/ Suffering much