THE GAMBIA![]() |
Gambian Literature and WritingsThe following information on Gambian Writers is meant to be shared with those interested in Gambian authors and their works. Many thanks to Dr Jean Dominique Pénel, the coordinator and director of the research and to whom this is dedicated, Dr Mamadou Tangara, (Coordinator, The Gambia-EC projects), Dr Pierre Gomez, (Senior Lecturer, University of The Gambia) and Mr Saihou Bah (Principal, Sheikh Mass Kah School) |
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Forster, Dayo
Friday, August 22, 2008 I was born in The Gambia, a tiny strip of a country in West Africa’s coast. We lived in a house that overlooked a medical research centre which contained huge cashew trees. A taste for tree climbing and adventure developed in order to go cashew hunting on the other side of the fence. As a much younger sibling among five, I was known to spend hours in the bathroom – the only secure place to escape household chores – either reading, or staring at the floor, which had speckled grey grains embedded in white tiles. I used to daydream patterns and pictures in my head, as one does looking at clouds – or the ceiling, as my protagonist in Reading the Ceiling does. Our house was close to the ocean, and I could always hear the sea at night as a child, crashing away against the rock cliffs jutting out into the Atlantic. My family is one of a group of Krio speakers who emigrated from Sierra Leone into the Gambia during colonial times. As a child, our extended family was large, and also included a host of friends of our parents who we called ‘aunt this’ or ‘uncle that’. When I was eighteen, I left home for university. As there were no universities in The Gambia at the time, everyone who aspired to one had to leave to study overseas. I studied statistics and computing at the London School of Economics. Although I have always been a keen reader, my interest in writing was mostly restricted to a series of teenage diaries, chronicling life, friends and daily intrigue. During a brief flare of interest in the student college magazine, I published a single article in the Beaver, a review of some sort. I took up writing aged 35, while living in America, essentially to figure out a way of expressing opinions and publishing essays on various topics. I stumbled into fiction while attending a writing workshop. The optional assignment was to extend a character in a story someone else had written. I tried it – and was bowled over by the power of virtual reality – the ability to create someone else’s world and be able to view everything through that person’s eyes. And to feel God-like, able to make things happen, yet be sensitive enough to continue to inhabit a character’s skin. I attempted various kinds of pieces, essays, biographical pieces, the occasional short story, a couple of abandoned novel ideas. It was at this time that I started working on Reading the Ceiling. I have since published a short story in Kwani?, a Kenyan literary magazine, and have participated in the 2006 Caine Prize Writer’s Workshop, during which I produced a new story, which was published in an anthology, The Obituary Tango. (Source: www.dayoforster.com)
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Comments: Pls identify yourselfFTK - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 7:07 PM Good job Dayyo. You da make we krio proud!
Btw the link to your website above has a typo. it should be www.dayoforster.com. Kushe girl. Keep up de good wok. Marika Sherwood - Europe, World - Monday, March 09, 2009 12:22 AM I am a historian trying to do some further research on William and Matthew Forster. William lived in Gambia for some thirty years - he died in 1849. What happened to his children? William must have been a wealthy man - his borhter certainly was! Can you help at all? Do you know why your 'family' name is 'Forster'? [Matthew Forster & his Forster & Smith are at least partially written up in my After Aboltion (IB Tauris, 2007)]
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