Robert Brown 
The Novels of Wilton Sankawulo 
A Critical Study

In the first chapter of this monograph, Dr. Robert H. Brown tries to lay the groundwork by discussing some of the problems of writing in Liberia and prospects for Liberian writers. Then he lists in chronological order some of the works published by Liberian writers as evidential proof that there is a paucity of creative fiction in Liberia. In three subsequent chapters, he undertakes a critical study of Wilton Sankawulos The Rain and the Night, Sundown at Dawn: A Liberian Odyssey, and Birds Are Singing. The chapters situate Wilton Sankawulos creative fiction in its proper context, revealing the currents of indigenous Liberian thought that run through it and tracing the connections that link the novels to a new development in his thinking. Indeed, however dissimilar in titles, The Rain and the Night, Sundown at Dawn: A Liberian Odyssey, and Birds Are Singing, to some extent, share tone, setting, and ambience that characterize the current moment of Liberias history as a turning point. Despite their minor grammatical infelicities and stylistic ineptitude, the three novels are set to become classics in the canon of African literature.

About the author

ROBERT H. Brown, who hails from southeastern Liberia, proved an excellent student at Maryland College of Our Lady of Fatima (High School Department) and received a scholarship from the Holy Cross Fathers to study at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, where he earned a B. A. in English. He worked as a Research Officer at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs & Tourism in Monrovia before entering Howard University in Washington, D. C., where he was awarded an M. A. He has also earned an M. A. in Language & Literature: English for Speakers of Other Languages from the University of London and a Ph D in Language & Linguistics from the University of Essex in England. He attended the International Vacation Course in English Language and Linguistics held at the Cambridge Centre for Languages, Sawston Hall, and at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, during the summer of 1984. Dr. Brown taught English, Religion and Reading at St. Hugh’s Roman Catholic School in Huntington Station, Long Island, New York, in 1973.

He taught English at a number of colleges in England. Dr. Brown also taught as an assistant professor of English in the University of Liberia for several years. He has published fiction in fourteen volumes of Short Story International in New York. His articles and fiction have appeared in African Arts and the Liberian Studies Journal in the United States. The BBC World Service has also broadcast his work. Dr. Brown’s first collection of short stories, After Long Silence and Other Liberian Stories, was published in New York in 1979. Author House in Bloomington, Indiana, has published his trilogy with the following titles: To Seek A Newer World, Remembrance of Things Past and The Paths of Glory.