Interviews |

Useful Swahili words and phrases to learn as the language spread across Africa

May 9, 2022 admin2Africa, Headline News, Swahili0 comment

Are you planning on learning Swahili? Then you’ll need to learn some basic Swahili phrases. But don’t panic – you likely already know at least one phrase in Swahili. “Hakuna matata” or “no worries” is the Swahili saying made famous by The Lion King. It’s the perfect introduction to the Swahili language, but there are a few more words to learn to give you a headstart that are so much more rewarding. Don’t worry if you’re not perfect – even just a few well-meaning attempts at speaking the Swahili language…

Interviews

Conversation with Bridget Nzeribe on Her Life Experiences in Liberia and Nigeria

August 8, 2021August 9, 2021 admin2Farming, Nigeria, Writer0 comment

With our short-lived publication, The Uptown Review magazine in Liberia between 2010 and 2011, I came across Bridget Nzeribe who became our advice columnist on sex, relationship. On her Facebook page she writes about the same subjects from time to time. Over the years we have maintained professional contact as writers. When I found out recently that Bridget has relocated back to Nigeria and is engaged in farming, I was surprised, which prompted a long conversation and now this interview. While in Liberia, Bridget also served as Liberia’s correspondent…

Interviews

Interview: Alternative housing in the modern world

August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 admin2Alternative Housing, Dag Walker, Interview0 comment

This is Blaz Vovk of Radiosraka, Novo Mesto, Slovenia. I am sitting in the jungle drinking wine and watching colorful tropical birds in Mindo, Ecuador with American writer D.W. Walker. Dag, what brings you to the jungle here in Ecuador for close now to two years? Don’t you miss the cities around the world? Dag: I miss very little of the rush of modern life. Life today is not “fast-paced,” as so many Europeans and Americans say: Life is just busy. Too often people don’t have time to live…

Interviews

Voice of the Revolution Special Issue September 1979 : Gabriel Bacchus Matthews Interviewed

April 6, 2021April 6, 2021 admin2Liberia, Matthews, PAL, Progressives0 comment

SPECIAL EDITION September 1979 APRIL 14 A YAH! “It is madness to suppose that the capitalists will submit voluntarily and that they will calmly surrender their…profits, their privileges of exploitation. All ruling classes have fought obstinately to the end for their privileges… All shed rivers of blood. They trampled upon corpses, they committed murder, arson, and state treason; they precipitated civil war for the purpose of defending their privileges and power. The imperialist capitalist class will defend its ‘holy of holies’—its profits and privileges of exploitation—tooth and nail. It will…

“2. Interview: “Dr. Patricia Wesley & Comrade Cherbo Geeplay”. Liberian Listener. August 14, 2019 https://www.liberianlistener.com/2019/08/14/interview-dr-patricia-wesley-comrade-cherbo-geeplay/ “3 Wen Wryte, “Dismantling the cancel culture.” American Thinker. July 6, 2020. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/dismantling_the_cancel_culture.html “4. Trudier Harris, “African American Protest Poetry.” National Humanistic Center, 1917 http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1917beyond/essays/aaprotestpoetry.html

Interviews

Cherbo Geeplay: ‘an age when poets’ voices are ever-needed to speak truth to power’

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 admin2Cherbo Geeplay, Interview, poet0 comment

By Mae Azango Who is Cherbo Geeplay and where was he born? I am an African who takes pride in his origins. I consider myself as a pan-Africanist, a Garveyite in that respect, and a great admirer of Edward Wilmot Blyden. I come from humble beginnings, like most of my fellow citizens. I was born in Pleebo, Liberia, where my dad worked for the Firestone Rubber Company as a teacher. Both of my parents hailed from River Gee. Most of my time growing up was lived in the southeastern part…

Interviews

April 12, 1980–40 years later: Surviving the Coup that Transformed Liberia

April 11, 2020 admin21980 Coup, Doe, Liberia, Tolbert0 comment

Liberia erupted in violence on April 12, 1980 as Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe seized power from President William Tolbert, ending 133 years of political dominance by Americo-Liberians. Americo-Liberians traced their ancestry to African Americans and Black British subjects who immigrated to Africa and became the founders of the Republic of Liberia, in power from 1847-1980. In October 1985, having promised to return Liberia to civilian rule, Doe was declared the winner of Liberia’s first multi-party elections. The results were largely rejected by the international community after his own staff took the ballots…

Interviews

Patrice Lumumba: 50 Years Later, Remembering the Pan Africanist leader

February 20, 2020 admin20 comment

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lumumba’s Pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Both Belgium and the United States actively sought to have him killed. The CIA ordered his assassination but could not complete the job. Instead, the United States and Belgium covertly funneled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested Lumumba. On January 17, 1961, after being beaten…

Janetta Marilyn Konah is a Liberian Poet and Author of "Beautiful Pieces" a poetry chapbook published on Amazon. She writes themes that explore the full range of human emotions, nature, life, and society. Her writing has appeared in KWEE, a Liberia Literary Magazine where she was featured as Author of the month of January 2020. She is a member of the reading literary team, Monrovia Reads, and WeWrite Liberia, where she gets to hone your creative passion for both writing and reading. The author lives in Monrovia where she moves through her daily life on the wings of poetry.

Interviews

Interview : Janetta Marilyn Konah, Liberian Poet and Author

February 19, 2020February 19, 2020 admin2Liberia, poet, Writer0 comment

Janetta Marilyn Konah is a Liberian Poet and Author of “Beautiful Pieces” a poetry chapbook published on Amazon. She writes themes that explore the full range of human emotions, nature, life, and society. Her writing has appeared in KWEE, a Liberia Literary Magazine where she was featured as Author of the month of January 2020. She is a member of the reading literary team, Monrovia Reads, and WeWrite Liberia, where she gets to hone your creative passion for both writing and reading. The author lives in Monrovia where she moves…

HBF: It was my way of delineating social classes and their reactions to the questions of patriotism and nationalism in a situation of political crisis. Again, the attempt was to draw our attention to that facet of our history which some ethnicists were trying to deny after the coup: that there ever were progressive and enlightened members of that social group called Americo-Liberians. This perception was ahistorical and downright reactionary. There have always been enlightened and progressive members of that group as one could see from the works of Blyden, Barclay, Bracewell, etc. Joe Benson was a symbol of that progressive tendency within this group which had maintained power after Barclay, would have altered the history of our country in a very positive direction.

Interviews

On his-Novel Behind God’s Back: a chat with Dr. HB Fahnbulleh, Jr.

August 23, 2019 admin2Behind God's Back, Boima Fahnbulleh0 comment

When I came across Dr. Fahnbulleh’s novel, “Behind God’s Back” at a local library in Monrovia in 2010, I was fascinated to know that he’s not only a militant agitator for social political change in Liberia, but a very good creative writer. I had read so much of his militant polemics of vexing Liberian social issues. But I could not imagine he had written a brilliant novel such as “Behind God’s Back.” Perhaps what fascinated me more than anything about this novel is the fact that as much as Dr. Fahnbulleh is well…

Interview by Professor Patricia Wesley, Penn State University

Interviews

Interview: Dr. Patricia Wesley & Comrade Cherbo Geeplay

August 14, 2019April 25, 2020 admin2Cherbo Geeplay, Interview, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley0 comment

Comrade Cherbo Geeplay was born in Pleebo, Southeastern Liberia, Western Africa, and is a Liberian and African poet whose work has appeared in many journals and publications, and was interviewed by Dr. Patricia Jabbeh Wesley. Can you talk a little bit about how you came to poetry? What has poetry offered to you? And what do you add to the dialogue of Liberian poetry? I think it was in high school, I got my spark from high school. High school was instrumental, and then during the Liberian civil war too,…