All_the_Stories_Are_True:_African_American_Writers

All The Stories Are True:
African American Writers Speak

The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe says that stories are not innocent. If you're not careful, they can put you in the wrong company—the company of those who come to dispossess you. And what does this mean? Hunter and hunted both have their stories, and all these stories are true. We each have to have our own stories and control our own narratives. And all these particular stories are part of a grand universal story—that sea or heaven—that vast expanse of the unknown narrative that we are all part of.

—Tijan M. Sallah
Guest Commentator

A poet and anthologist, Tijan M. Sallah is one of the new writers seeking to forge a new Gambian national literature. He has published three books of poetry, one book of short stories, two anthologies, and an ethnography (on the Wolof heritage of West Africa). He is the author of Chinua Achebe: Teacher of Light, a recent biography on the celebrated Nigerian novelist.


		All The Stories Are True: African American Writers Speak The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe says that stories are not innocent. If you're not careful, they can put you in the wrong company—the company of those who come to dispossess you. And what does this mean? Hunter and hunted both have their stories, and all these stories are true. We each have to have our own stories and control our own narratives. And all these particular stories are part of a grand universal story—that sea or heaven—that vast expanse of the unknown narrative that we are all part of. —Tijan M. Sallah Guest Commentator A poet and anthologist, Tijan M. Sallah is one of the new writers seeking to forge a new Gambian national literature. He has published three books of poetry, one book of short stories, two anthologies, and an ethnography (on the Wolof heritage of West Africa). He is the author of Chinua Achebe: Teacher of Light, a recent biography on the celebrated Nigerian novelist.

Photograph by Steven M. Cummings