Africa-Press – Rwanda. he Liberia Poet Society (LPS) has launched its first non-fiction, titled “Unforgotten August.” The literary piece was written by one of LPS’ members, Sunnie Antonio Marcar Jr. Marcar did his beautiful piece amidst an unfriendly literary environment. He is one of few Liberians, who are beating the odds and placing the balls of his pens to papers and publishing quality literary contents.
Marcar Jr. launched the ‘Unforgotten August’ on Sunday, August 29, at SMART Liberia, 2nd Street Sinkor in Monrovia. It is one of the literary works he has embarked upon.
The day saw a small gathering composed of families, friends and supporters of the LPS who turned out to support the cause.
‘Unforgotten August’
is a narrative non-fiction that highlights the severe damage that the Ebola epidemic had on one particular family in Kakata, Margibi County. It speaks a little about the life of the protagonist, provides a historical analysis about the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Liberia and narrates how a girl became an orphan after she lost seven members of her family to the deadly Ebola plague that wreaked havoc on Liberia in 2014.
Addressing the audience, the keynote speaker at the event, Cllr. Kanio Bai Gbala, Vice Chairperson of the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) stated that Liberians in general have not developed a healthy appetite for reading but are fired up when it comes to politics and social issues. He emphasized the need for Liberians to channel their advocacies through the arts, including writing, singing or spoken words. He placed emphasis on Zenzile Miriam Makeba of South Africa who used the arts to advocate for social justice and equality in South Africa. Cllr. Gbala stated that ‘All is not lost,’ though the arts are not holistically appreciated in Liberia.
He called on Liberian writers to be conscious about their writings and take ownership. He encouraged them to write about their own culture and happenings and use the arts to project their culture to the world.
At the event, the critical and tough-talking publisher of Forte Publications, D. Othniel Forte, delivering a ten-minute tip-talk, challenged aspiring authors to focus on developing quality content and go back to the basics of writing.
Though the audience outlined lack of finance, time and sales as challenges confronting Liberian writers, Forte termed these challenges as ‘further down the line’ and presented poor contents, low review and lack of identity and ownership as challenges.
He encouraged aspiring Liberian writers to write about what they are familiar with – their culture. He concluded by stating that Liberians must respect and value their own works to have others respect and value their works.
When quizzed by a panel of moderators comprising of D. Siafa Draper, Dwede Tarpeh and Thelma Teetee Ahamba, the author emphasized that he was motivated by charity to publish his book and further said that the intent of the book is to create awareness about the current Coronavirus pandemic. Sunnie believes that scripting the past is very significant because it serves as a correctional tool to fix the present.
‘What’s next’ was the question probed by Dwede Tarpeh to the author and in response, the author stated: ‘The publication of more books is next’. In addition, the author outlined editing, finance and time as major challenges that confronted the publication of his work.
In response to the question from the audience, Sunnie stated that he currently has no intent of bringing his book to the screen but will be glad if he had to work with others to bring ‘Unforgotten August’ on screen.
The launch was made possible through the instrumentality of LPS’ book launch team headed by Marjorie Nenneh Graham, Linda Kai, Momodu Gray and Jumah A.P. Paasewe.
‘Unforgotten August’
can be obtained through +231555725860; +231775361428 or by emailing [email protected].
