Artists & Reviews

Just Sam [Samantha Diaz] on ‘American Idol’: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

American Idol returns for Season 18 on Sunday night and during the two-hour premiere on ABC, viewers will not only get reacquainted with the show’s three all-star judges – Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryant, but will be introduced to a slew of fresh talent. With Ryan Seacrest returning as the series’ host, American Idol is kicking things off with a strong start, and one of the premiere episode’s standout contestants is Samantha Diaz, who goes by the stage name Just Sam. Adopted and raised by her…

Moran has interesting passages on the social institutions of southeastern Liberia and on understandings of elections, but her general argument is less than fully persuasive. This is so not least because it is based on memories of Liberia as it was more than twenty years ago and on a reading of Glebo political institutions that, while instructive, is predicated on a liberal view of society whose applicability to Liberia is not beyond question.

Artists & Reviews

Liberia: The Violence of Democracy, Review

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020 admin2Democracy, Liberia, Mary moran0 comment

Mary Moran, an anthropologist, did fieldwork in the southeast of Liberia in 1982–83. Since that time she has continued to follow the twists and turns of Liberian affairs from her vantage point in the United States, benefiting from the possibilities offered by modern communication and by the presence of an important Liberian diaspora. This book was provoked by her frustration at the ways in which Liberia has been represented in international media since its descent into war in 1989. In her view, moreover, proponents of some academic disciplines—political…

The Fervent Global Love of Lives Award under Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation was founded in 1997 and annually invites institutions, organizations, schools or individuals to recommend candidates who are brave, benevolent and diligent fighters in life.

Artists & Reviews

11 yrs Nigerian hyper-realistic artist, Waris Olamilekan wins International Art award

February 4, 2020 admin2Nigeian waris Olamilekan Kareem0 comment

Famed 11-year-old Nigerian hyper-realist artist Kareem Waris Olamilekan triumphed over 2,723 international candidates to win Taiwan’s 22nd Fervent Global Love of Lives Award. The Fervent Global Love of Lives Award under Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation was founded in 1997 and annually invites institutions, organizations, schools or individuals to recommend candidates who are brave, benevolent and diligent fighters in life. The foundation promotes the ‘Global Love of Lives movement’ and believes that ‘Everyone is Good at Something’. This year Nigerian sensation 11-year-old, Kareem Waris Olamilekan was one in approx.…

"Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is unequivocal about the uses of poetry, of her poetry—she is determined to trade in truth, in the power of experience, in the beauty of language to alarm and delight and in the challenge she willingly bears to be an instrument of witness and articulation for her people—for Africa, for women, for the lovers of poetry. In Praise Song for My Children, we encounter a poet at the height of her skills and at the height of her clarity about the world and what things must be spoken into it. But we are blessed to be given an insight into how she arrives at this place of power—it is a remarkable selection of some of the most urgent poems to emerge out of the wars of Liberia. Here is work of incredible joy, deepest lamentation, and necessary hope. It is a sure testament."

Artists & Reviews

Review: Praise Song for My Children, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 admin2African, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, poet0 comment

Praise Song for My Children celebrates twenty-one years of poetry by one of the most significant African poets of this century. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley guides us through the complex and intertwined highs and lows of motherhood and all the roles that it encompasses: parent, woman, wife, sister, friend. Her work is deeply personal, drawing from her own life and surroundings to convey grief, the bleakness of war, humor, deep devotion, and the hope of possibility. These poems lend an international voice to the tales of motherhood, as Wesley speaks both…

His 19 track album, 'African Giant,' was nominated alongside music heavyweights including Angelique Kidjo and Altin Gun. He follows in the footsteps of Femi and Seun Kuti, (the sons of legendary musician, Fela Kuti) King Sunny Ade and other Nigerian music stars. It has been a standout year for Burna Boy, (real name Damini Ogulu) who has won a string of awards and sold out venues across the globe. It's all a far cry from when he was yet to attain global fame and his Coachella billing apparently displeased him.

Artists & Reviews

Grammy Nomination: ‘African Giant’, Burna Boy’s roaring success

January 5, 2020January 5, 2020 admin2Burna Boy, Grammy Nomination0 comment

Lagos, Nigeria (CNN)Award-winning Nigerian singer, Burna Boy has topped off a stellar music year with a Grammy nomination and cemented his place as this year’s breakaway music star. His 19 track album, ‘African Giant,’ was nominated alongside music heavyweights including Angelique Kidjo and Altin Gun. He follows in the footsteps of Femi and Seun Kuti, (the sons of legendary musician, Fela Kuti) King Sunny Ade and other Nigerian music stars. It has been a standout year for Burna Boy, (real name Damini Ogulu) who has won a string of awards…

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongio will succeed Vinton Cerf, known for being one of the fathers of the Internet. Cerf was the first technologist to receive the prize, with other awarded figures including the philosopher Karl Popper, oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, politician Václav Havel, writer Doris Lessing, and activist Malala Yousafzai. The prize will be awarded to the Kenyan author during the first quarter of 2020 at a ceremony chaired by Catalan president Quim Torra.

Artists & Reviews

Kenyan writer and activist Ngugi wa Thiong’o wins Catalonia International Prize

December 31, 2019 admin2Africa, Ngugi, Writer0 comment

The Kenyan writer and activist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o has been awarded the 31st Catalonia International Prize given by the Catalan government, “for his distinguished and courageous literary work and his defense of African languages, based on the notion of language as culture and collective memory.” “Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is one of the most prolific and renowned African writers,” reads the jury’s communiqué. “In all the genres he cultivates – novels, essays, memoirs, theatre – he combines the most profound African traditions with a sensitive yet merciless description of the social…

http://www.literaryorphans.org/playdb/two-poems-patricia-jabbeh-wesley/?fbclid=IwAR0byNvX4cElB_Ya3Uu0zpv5SfTMf6RfVA5RI2FXJtkBQtgFgCvp0vS3f44

Artists & Reviews

Literary Orphan Published These Two Poems By Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

December 23, 2019 admin2Liberia, poetry, Wesley0 comment

Poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley was born in Monrovia, Liberia, and raised there and in her father’s home village of Tugbakeh, where she learned to speak Grebo in addition to English, the national language. In 1991, Wesley immigrated with her family to southern Michigan to escape the Liberian civil war. She earned a BA at the University of Liberia, an MS at Indiana University, and a PhD at Western Michigan University. Vulnerable in their combination of grief and levity, Wesley’s poems deal with family, community, and war. “What I try to…

Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an educator and writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia (1976-1990), London, England (1990-1991), and in Switzerland since 1991. She earned a B.A. in English and Secondary Education from the University of the Virgin Islands and an M.A. in Modern American Literature from Kent State University, U.S.A. She also has a Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (CETEFLA).

Artists & Reviews

Former UL Prof Romeo Mark’s poems are published in Beyond the Long Lines

December 13, 2019 admin2Althea Romeo-Mark, poetry0 comment

Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an educator and writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia (1976-1990), London, England (1990-1991), and in Switzerland since 1991. She earned a B.A. in English and Secondary Education from the University of the Virgin Islands and an M.A. in Modern American Literature from Kent State University, U.S.A. She also has a Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (CETEFLA). She considers herself a citizen…

And, though the narrative surrounding the assimilation of Liberia’s African American founders with the indigenous population is hardly one that always had a harmonious denouement, Vamba’s Land of My Fathers doesn’t focus on rehashing the inharmonious. Rather, it is a story about genuine friendship, mutual respect and love between an Americo Liberian, as the settlers became known, and an indigenous character that stood the test of time. It is truly a story about what was possible and what could be for his country, Liberia.

Artists & Reviews

Vamba Sherif’s Land of My Fathers: A Review

December 12, 2019 admin2Liberia, The Land of My Fathers, Vamba Sherif0 comment

On February 4, 1857, Mary Mickey, a former slave from Charlottesville, Virginia, wrote a letter to her former master about her journey to Liberia and her impression of the new country she would now call home: “It affords me great pleasure to have this opportunity to address a letter to you. In the midst of danger & death, while we could discern nothing above, & around us but the blue canopy of heaven, & under us the deep, deep blue sea, we were Providentially cared for, and bless to reach…

Ms. Golakai and her co-winners, Gloria M. Odari, Parselelo Kantai, and Nnamdi Oguike will each receive a grant of €18,000 to allow them to take a year off to finish the Spectral novel. “Spectral is a terrifying examination of the tensions between freedom and social order. It will have speculative fiction themes: fantasy, science fiction, horror, magical realism. I love mixing science with fantastical and unknown,” Ms. Golakai said about the upcoming book.

Artists & Reviews

Liberian Writer Golakai Wins 2019 Morland Writing Scholarship

December 1, 2019 admin2Liberian, Literature, Writer0 comment

Liberian Author Hawa Jande Golakai has emerged as one of the four joint winners of the prestigious Morland Writing Scholarships for her work Spectral. Ms. Golakai, a speculative fiction author and a professional medical immunologist, is the first and only Liberian to win the Morland scholarship prize since its inception in 2013. Ms. Golakai and her co-winners, Gloria M. Odari, Parselelo Kantai, and Nnamdi Oguike will each receive a grant of €18,000 to allow them to take a year off to finish the Spectral novel. “Spectral is a…