***** Another great Sierra Leonean: Adelaide Casely-Hayford
Cornelius Hamelberg
Another great Sierra Leonean: Adelaide Casely-Hayford
Got to thinking about her today as it’s grandson Kobina Hunter’s birthday today! (Mother Gladys Casely-Hayford)
(I have wished him a happy birthday on Facebook and wish that I could be there to sing with much gusto, “For he is a jolly good fellow!”
My Classmates the late Akintola Wyse and James Braithwaite along with Sylvester Abimbola Young (along with James another maths genius) and Monty Labour and I were in the lower forms and used to play table-tennis with Kobi who had just finished secondary school and was part-timing as our math teacher at the Prince of Wales School...
kenneth harrow
when you write below you mention james braithwaite as one of your classmates. is he related to edward (kamau) braithwaite?
ken
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
-- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Cornelius Hamelberg
Hi Ken,
Chanukah chag sameach!
I wish that I could answer with some precision. It’s another diaspora tragedy – the dispersal of family and friends , far flung, UK, US, Germany, Holland, the Caribbean, various parts of Africa. James passed on I don’t even know when. I got to know about it long after the event. I’m told that he got mad … madness…
I last met James accidentally on a British Airways flight and I can’t remember when, which year or from where to where but I do remember the long tragic story that he told me...
James Braithwaite is special – he was one of my best friends (of which there were approximately seven)
The mention of Braithwaite conjures first the image of my James chalking up and solving problems calculations on the blackboard, - we were classmates throughout secondary school 1958-1965 – 1969 – he went directly to mathematics - and to Durham (in Northern England ) and was due for a first class honours in maths….
Secondly, the mention of the name Braithwaite conjures “To Sir with love” (Edward Braithwaite) - another Braithwaite - and the film (your department) one of the first modern Black stars “Guess who’s coming to Dinner? “: Sidney Poitier
Could be that James is related to Edward (Kamau) Braithwaite since James’ father or grandfather is West Indian, but I’d say more likely Jamaican & Maroon, than Barbados ( incidentally my two daughters grew up mostly in Barbados and London… )
James played rhythm guitar in a then popular Band in Sierra Leone, “The Golden Strings “where his elder brother Julian played lead. To get more precise information we could contact their vocalist Cecil Blake or the Strings’ bass player Dennis Stephanopoulos. I’m occasionally in touch with them and could enquire.
kenneth harrow
had semeach. i love kamau braithwaite's work: he is one of my favorite authors, which is why i was asking. you seem to have crossed lines or bumped into half the african and black diaspora authors of the early period!
ken
Cornelius Hamelberg
sorry about my long answer especially if it seemed to wrap up half of my black continent's diaspora history. that was just for the record, not yours but mine. I was not born inside a skeleton.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Kenneth,
When I read your “had semeach” I realised that I should have written to William Bangura: “I didn’t respond to that posting because if I had (instead of if I did) - I’m sure that I would have been declared a persona non grata in Sierra Leone for all eternity.”
My last message to you was sent via my cell phone. I would now like to add this:
As I rapidly approach my earthly allotment of three score years and ten I get a little nervous every time notice the prominence of bright red and yellow jacket of the book on my shelf entitled “1001 BOOKS you must read before you die” That it will still be there after I am long gone .it only increases the big existential sorrow and anxiety, that all flesh shall perish.
I suppose that you could do some of us post-colonial anglophiles (half Francophiles) who are interested in updating our African Lit a favour by e.g. compiling a modest list of say just ten books that will not perish (apart from Achebe and the other big wigs still writing in English). In Ghana, Gerald Moore enthused our little group about Tchicaya U'tamsi – so you don’t have to include him or Ferdinand Oyono or Mongo Beti or Camara Laye or Ousmane Sembene…
As for me and black diaspora authors of the early period, I don’t know exactly where you’ll place him but just now mostly for sociological reasons I’m reading Gil Scott- Heron’s “ The Last Holiday - A Memoir” and the very first sentence of his recollection makes me doubt my own : “ I always doubt detailed recollections authors write about their childhoods. Maybe I am jealous that they retain such clarity of their long agos while my own past seems only long gone”
Humbly (before I turn to humus)
Cornelius
kenneth harrow
have a good chanukah, this is the week for the festival of lights where the oil lasted 8 days instead of one, according to jewish legends. jews put menorahs in their windows this time of year, as christians light up their holiday lights, which i am seeing now around my neighborhood. much more here in the u.s. than in the u.k., from which i just returned
best of holidays to everyone on this list, christian, jewish, muslim, worshippers of ogun or chineke, and all the other deities for whom not only justice but peace is what we want first to reign. peace only.
ken
Anunoby, Ogugua
Dear Ken,
You say “have a good Chanukah, this is the week of the festival of lights…”. What about Hanukah? It has to do with lights too does it not?
oa
kenneth harrow
yes, it's the same. those sounds in foreign languages get rendered variously in english, especially when the sounds don't correspond. nobody knows this better than nigerians, i mean the ibos, oh i mean the igbos, and the soyinkas, whose names sound like shoyenka to my ear; and ALL THOSE diacriticals for rising and falling tonals, which i can't even figure out how to type on the computer.
yes, it is hanukah, oh, i mean hannukah, oh chanukah. whatever, happy holiday
ken