Syl Cheney-Coker

David Borman (Bellarmine University)

Ed. by Helen Rachel Cousins, Birmingham Newman University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 8.2.3: Anglophone African Writing and Culture: Subsaharan.
Vol. editors: Helen Rachel Cousins (Birmingham Newman University), David Firth (University of Manchester)

Dates

Born 28 Jun 1945
Activity 1965-ongoing

Places

Born in Sierra Leone
Active in Sierra Leone; United States

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Poet

Resources

Cheney-Coker's Works

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Syl Cheney-Coker is one of the most known authors from Sierra Leone, first as a poet and then as the author of the magical realist-inspired novel

The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar

(1990). His work features the history of Sierra Leone as an inspiration and frequently mixes historical and magical language to create complex imagery concerning the nation and its history of class divisions.

Born in 1945, Cheney-Coker grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to parents who were Christians and descendants of those who “returned” to the country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This group is now commonly called Krio society, and is characterized by synthesizing Western and African traditions. In 1965, at the age of twenty-one, he left Sierra Leone to attend the University of California

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1393 words

Citation: Borman, David. "Syl Cheney-Coker". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 June 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=845, accessed 21 November 2024.]