Mohamed Kamara

Colonial Legacies in Francophone African Literature: The School and the Invention of the Bourgeoisie by Mohamed Kamara examines the representation of the colonial school and bourgeoisie in Francophone sub-Saharan literature. Mohamed Kamara contends that the so-called colonial bourgeoisie was invented by the colonizer through the school to perpetuate the ideology of the colonizer, and he interrogates the policies and practices of the school and the ways they were informed by discourses of racial difference. While many works, like those authored by Gadjigo and Alessandri, have interrogated the impact of the colonial school on the African individual and society, they do not focus on the relationship between colonial education and the emergence of the African bourgeois and bourgeoise. Accordingly, this book analyzes the various literary strategies used in selected texts to paint a portrait of the school and the class it produced in view of showing the organic relationship between the two. This book adds a fresh perspective on the intimate connection between the school and social transformation in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. Kamara suggests that the best solution for the continent resides in the continent’s ability to take what is good in its precolonial past and combine it with what makes sense in today’s reality.

The first-born son and brother to six siblings, author Mohamed Kamara was just a year old when the civil war started in Sierra Leone. But it wasnOt until he was six that the war reared its ugly head in his village, Mile 91 Tonkolili District of the Northern Province. In the middle of the night, Mohamed and his family fled into the woods, leaving their burning home behind. In Diamond in the Rough, he shares the story of his flight from Africa to the United States. As a young child, he witnessed unspeakable atrocities while the family struggled to stay alive, hiding in the woods and journeying from village to village during the night. Kamara narrates his tale of survival and his return home when the war ended. In this memoir, he tells of his opportunity to travel to America, graduating from both high school and Johnson and Wales University, and creating a nonprofit to benefit his village. Kamara offers a story of pain, suffering, love, endurance, and courage.