My journey to Sierra Leone is starting.
I am a creature of habits, and a creature of books, so my first encounter with Salone is through books. I have already read A long way gone (here's an excerpt), but as soon as my new baby arrives, I'll read it again. In the meantime, I have bought Moses, Citizen and Me (should arrive next week) and I am reading The Devil that Danced on the Water, thanks to this wonderful feature of Kindle for Mac: the first chapter(s) for free.
I have found a couple of lists of books to read on Sierra Leone: this one from the Africa Book Centre, and this one on Amazon. There are a number of texts on the history and the conflict and the situation of the country right now, but I will have time for that. I like to approach a country through its literature and its art.
I will never forget what a friend told me one night, in a local pub in Man, in the western part of Côte d'Ivoire: he was explaining zouglou songs and their lyrics, and he said that the musicians and the singers had sung the war before it happened. They had foreseen it all, and he went on showing with this and that song how they had really talked about what would (and did) happen in the future. I have since forgotten the songs, but I never forgot his words.
Artists, poets and writers can see what we don't see.
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