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In his bold and pioneering novel, No Past, No Present, No Future, Pat Amadu Maddy explores the dynamics between three young boys as their lives slide quickly into chaos and tragedy. At a missionary school in colonial West Africa, three students from very different backgrounds forge a friendship in an effort to forget the difficulties they face at home. But when one of the boys betrays the other, a series of disastrous events spiral into out of control.
After finally leaving school, their paths cross once again in Europe but prejudice and diverging loyalties put the brotherhood they once had into question. How can they ever dream of a future together when the ghosts of the past are determined to haunt their present?
About the author
Yulisa Amadu Maddy was a professor, poet, playwright, novelist, and dancer born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1936.
In 1969, he founded Sierra Leone's Gbakanda Afrikan Tiata theatre company and published a collection of poetry titled
New African Prose. The following year, he directed Zambia's national dance troupe in training for Montreal World's Fair.
He received the Sierra Leone National Arts Festival Award in 1973, the same year he released his debut novel,
No Past, No Present, No Future. He was also awarded the Gulbenkian Grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1978 and an Edinburgh Festival Award in 1979.
Maddy was briefly imprisoned and exiled for his political activism in Sierra Leone but returned in 2007 to teach at Freetown's Milton Margai College of Education. He died in 2014.
Summary
In his bold and pioneering novel, No Past, No Present, No Future, Yulisa Amadu Maddy explores the dynamics between three young boys as their lives slip quickly into chaos and tragedy.
At a missionary school in colonial West Africa, three students from very different backgrounds forge a friendship in an effort to forget the difficulties they face at home. But when one of the boys betrays the other, a series of disastrous events spiral into out of control.
After finally leaving school, their paths cross once again in Europe but prejudice and diverging loyalties put the brotherhood they once had into question. How can they ever dream of a future together when the ghosts of the past are determined to haunt their present?
Foreword
In his bold and pioneering novel, No Past, No Present, No Future, Yulisa Amadu Maddy explores the dynamics between three young boys as their lives slip quickly into chaos and tragedy.
