A Kind of Homecoming

In the early 1960s acclaimed British Guianese author E. R. Braithwaite embarked on a pilgrimage to the West African countries of Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, and across Sierra Leone just as the emerging nation was preparing to declare its independence. What Braithwaite discovered was a world vastly different from the staid, firmly established British society in which he had spent most of his life. In a place as foreign to him as the dark side of the moon, he was overcome by colorful sights, sounds, and smells that vividly reawakened lost memories from his childhood. Entering the intimate circles of the local intelligentsia, Braithwaite was able to view these newly evolving African societies from the inside, struck by their mixtures of passion and naïveté, their political obsessions and technological indifference. The author discovered a world that fascinated, excited, and, in some cases, deeply troubled him—and in the process he discovered himself.