A New Publication : My Epic Journey: The Making of a cosmopolitan - A memoir by Eustace Palmer

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Sep 29, 2022, 8:32:56 AM9/29/22
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A New Publication: My Epic Journey: The Making of a cosmopolitan -  A memoir by Eustace Palmer

Yesterday, I was happy to visit  Doc P’s Facebook page and voila - there it was, the good news. 

It promises to be a voyage of self-discovery - a classic and a most distinguished place in the canons of the autobiographical….

Might Congratulations Sir! 

As said earlier in this forum,  the young Eustace Palmer was my pen friend  when he was a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and I was in the second form at the Prince of Wales School;  his younger brother Alongo Palmer was also my friend classmate then

Personally, I place Dr P at the apex of the English Novel criticism  -and by extension, the African Novel written in English.

Nuff said.


Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 29, 2022, 7:49:59 PM9/29/22
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Happy to join Cornelius in celebration the work, accomplishments, and life of this modest scholar. Wonderful news eustace!
Ken

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 30, 2022, 9:13:30 AM9/30/22
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i recall his book on the African novel

Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 30, 2022, 9:31:12 AM9/30/22
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He was one of the pioneers
Ken

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - A New Publication : My Epic Journey: The Making of a cosmopolitan - A memoir by Eustace Palmer
 

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Sep 30, 2022, 1:27:42 PM9/30/22
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Professor Eustace James Taiwo Palmer is indeed a pioneer.

The only other Sierra Leonean autobiography that I’m aware of is Kossoh Town Boy by  Robert Wellesley Cole.

There’s also, of course,  Old Man Trouble by Ernest Marke which more or less starts with his demobilisation at Liverpool after the first world war, after fighting heroically for  King and  British Empire. He talks about the first race riot in Britain, at Notting Hill, shortly thereafter. 

Now that everybody or almost everybody in the US and those who carved up Africa at the Berlin Conference of 1984 - 1985  is huffing and puffing about the referendum and annexation of Eastern Ukraine, just this stray thought ( like a stray bullet): 

Nobody asked us or held a referendum about whether or not African on the African Continent wanted to be colonised or not. The Pilgrim Fathers of course did not hold a referendum to ascertain whether or not the Native Americans wanted to hand over their land to them. I suppose that if such a referendum had been held, by now Uncle Sam would be discussing at the Security Council with Russia, China, France,  China, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland about a two-state solution for North America:  one for the Native Americans and the other for the immigrants, to live in peace and tranquillity forever…

Was Professor Harrow by any chance friends with Professor Lemuel Johnson?


Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 30, 2022, 2:08:57 PM9/30/22
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I was friends with lem Johnson, a man I considered one of the most brilliant scholars of African literature, period. He was one of the most erudite and eloquent people I ever knew as well. I treasured lem and mourn his passing to this day.
Ken

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Sep 30, 2022, 10:24:11 PM9/30/22
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Correction: The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 at which the Continent of Africa was partitioned by the then “European Powers” without proposing any yes/ no referendum on their land grabs…

As far as Sierra Leonean autobiographies go, there’s “What Life Has Taught Me: The Autobiography of President Siaka Stevens of Sierra Leone” - the kind of literature that you’d think would have normally been banned by successive SLPP governments. Some politicians embark on penning their autobiographies in order to - to some extent redeem/ whitewash/ justify or even glorify their sometimes bloodthirsty legacies. 

We are to assume that likewise, Satan has also penned his own authorised version of his Bible (If you ask me, I think that there ought to be a fatwa on him and his publishers) 

Michel Onfray ( I’m now studying the last ism - namely  Atheism and I’ve been taking a deep peep into his “Atheist Manifesto”) - he famously argues against the kind of censorship that would have banned and banished some of his ideas and guillotined his head 

Harrow, Kenneth

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Oct 1, 2022, 5:19:19 PM10/1/22
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One of my favorite authors is Sierra Leonean/Scottish, that being Aminatta Forna. Her work is good to fabulous, for me. One is a biography of her father—but plenty autobiographical there too, The Devil Who Walked on the Water.
Ken
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