Short stories
A Krio Engagement and Other Stories
Nana Grey-Johnson · 1987
Synopsis
Nine short stories paint the life of Bathurst, present-day Banjul, and of the Gambian countryside. In December 1946, a man believed drowned in the wreck of a river steamer arrives in the middle of his own requiem, where people think they see his ghost. Other stories follow a man who sinks into drink after a disappointment in love, the end of the old wars between Jola and Mandinka, a trumpeter separated from his love by the war, peasants watching for the rain, and the Krio engagement of Charles and Ajua.
Context
The book appeared in Banjul in 1987, under the name Nana Humasi, and each story carries an illustration. Seven of the nine texts had first appeared in the magazine West Africa, and the sixth story gives the volume its title. The last story returns to the attempted coup d'état of July 1981: a woman gives birth at home there under gunfire. The author has since produced a revised version.
Who it is for
Short stories in English, from five to twenty-one pages; Bathurst is the former name of Banjul.
Prizes and reception
The critic Cherno Omar Barry sees it as a milestone in the history of Gambian written literature.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.