K. Moses Nagbe is the Liberian writer who seems not to believe in the idea of the muses being silent when guns talk. Even though his country, Liberia, is still under the shadow of war, away in the United States, Nagbe has been through a spectacular artistic development, publishing prose and poetry.

Following a tradition in prose, the first novel in English from Africa being written by a Liberian, Joseph Walters, in 1891, Guanya Pau: A Story of An African Princess, K. Moses Nagbe has published several novels, Road to Romeo, Sun at Midnight, Wings for the Next Day, A Scream in the Storm, and prose work on several sites, Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles.com, Booksamillion.com, AuthorHouse.com.

At present, Nagbe is embarked upon an ambitious project, Nuggets of the African Novel, with Notes on the Liberian Literary Heritage, a work, which when published, will constitute an important source of information for literary research and comparative literature, for scholars and the large public, all over the world.

Eager to talk about Liberia, its artists, traditions, its rich culture, I got in touch with this Liberian writer again, after almost fifteen years of silence, and had the privilege of being granted a virtual interview on his writing.

EA: Are the books you mentioned manuscripts ready for publication or are they already published?

KMN: Yes, they are all published by AuthorHouse, Indiana, USA

EA: These texts are very different from Thinking Through The Times, different in style, intricacy, complexity: can you comment on that?

KMN: Indeed, they are different, both in length and in genre. Thinking Through The Times was short and was a blend of non-fiction and imaginative writing, essays and poetry. My present plan is to provide elaborate insight into those themes unfolding to distressful proportions. Insurgency and its impact on numerous regions in Africa is surely a subject for critical attention. And as the conscience of society, writers need to interpret the social, political and economic situation. Interpretation of such huge human dynamics can never be an easy task; it will usually carry its spice of intricacy and complexity.

EA: One can't be but amazed in front of a complexly structured novel like A Scream in the Storm. It takes me to the Afro-American novel, on the line of Melville, Faulkner, Morrison: A Scream in the Storm doesn't seem to be specifically African, in terms of what we, Europeans, know about the African novel.

KMN: I'm not sure I know the attributes which Europeans have given the African novel. But one thing I'm sure of is that the African novel has, like every novel in that genre of imaginative writing, moved from one theme to another depending on social, political, and economic attitudes of one generation after another. There was a time when Africans wanted to reconstruct the past. Thus, using the novel as a purveyor of culture, they sought to weave a lot of proverbs, riddles, songs, and tales-all elements of folklore-into each prose fictional work. In a certain sense, then, the African novel was described more as didactic.

But in recent times, Africans have been adversely impacted by so many social, economic, and political problems unleashed by modernity. Now is the time to provide an interpretation of the metamorphosis, not with the goal of merely chanting jeremiads, but with the goal of finding instructive signals of hope and capitalizing on them for the good of the continent and the rest of the world. That human capacity to overcome adversity was a theme Melville, Faulkner, Morrison and several American writers also treated.

EA: Going through the abstracts, I can't help recalling titles of the Afro-American novel: Color Purple, Beloved, and so on. I also go back to Thinking Through The Times, and I am surprised to see an abundance of characters, an intricate plot, a rich discourse, extremely polished. Perhaps, I shouldn't ask a question like "What determined such an artistic evolution," but rather ask you to comment on the stages of artistic development you have passed through.

KMN: Only death stops the process of evolution. I am still alive and continue to evolve. Because of that, normally I try to shy away from discussing my own process; it isn't complete. I can say simply that time and the harsh experiences of war have served as a rudder with which I've been finding my path through the lives and times of other peoples and cultures, trying to weave a representative experience to which not only Africa but also other regions of the world may respond. In that sense then, I am hoping to be able to contribute modestly to imaginative writing---that universal art of internal and external dialogue of humanity.

EA: Your novel bears the prints of the social, political, militating trend in literature. What about the so-called "mystery" of Africa? Let's think, for instance, about Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, so appealing to readers of all times and places? Once, a Time correspondent, a gentleman who had been reporting from Africa for over thirty years, said that over there, God walks in the air. Have you ever exploited this aspect in your writings?

KMN: I rarely do. The reason is that a peculiar attribute of a people gets only too quickly misunderstood or exploited. The effect can become detrimental. For example, many past non-African writers often showed Africans as remarkably stoic in the face of adversity. Thus, an interpretation was that nobody had to be remorseful for ill-treating anybody incapable of pain.

I see things differently. Africans tend to be very resilient---that is a strand of the "mystery." In the face of grave suffering, they usually show the capacity to endure. Even so, I'm often interested in taking it further. I'm interested in showing that that survivor spirit can be taken to a productive end of minimizing suffering and increasing peace, comfort, and prosperity. No period is perhaps more critical than now, requiring Africans to pursue the goals of moving beyond quietly accepting suffering to using the lesson of suffering to keep disquieting suffering in check.

EA: What other novelists, except Bai T. Moore, have been published in Liberia? Do you think there is a strong prose tradition?

KMN: Besides Bai T. Moore, there are several other African novelists of Liberian extraction. I'll give you a few. Before Moore, there have been Joseph Walters, author of Guanya Pau: A Story of an African Princess (1891), Charles Cooper, author of Love in Ebony (1932) and Roland T. Dempster, author of The Mystic Reformation of Gondolia (1953). After Moore, Wilton Sankawulo, author of The Rain and the Night (1976), C. William Allen, author of An Obituary for Hawa Barchue (1983), Ruth Reeves, author of Stranger Son (1993), and D. E. S. Kandai, author of The Village Son (1994).

Is there a strong prose tradition in Liberia? I'll say yes, but not as strong as a poetry tradition. Prose — and I take it that you mean fictional prose — demands longer hours and critical attention to an extended emotive structure of details. Technically, poetry does not. Consequently, most people prefer working with poetry to tell their human story of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, dream and disappointment. In any case, what could be better? Edgar Allen Poe of America, talks about the creating of the "unity of effect." Perhaps poetry then is a critical medium needed to disseminate quick and sharp images from a country like Liberia, which in recent years has been impacted by a gruesome war. Of course, the story needs to flow through whichever medium to the outside world with the hope of inspiring much needed social, political, economic and even religious assistance.

EA: What about the contributions of the Liberian novel/prose to the African novel?

KMN: The African novel has sought to do several things---restructure and reappraise the past, interpret the impact of alien cultures on the continent, interpret the impact of modernity on the continent, and, in recent times, help find lessons from civil crises and use them in a meaningful way. The African novelist of Liberian extraction has been equally involved in that interpretation of the varied dynamics.

EA: What about your poetry? Have you written and published more?

KMN: I've written a bit of poetry---over three hundred poems. But only a few have been published---some diffused through my prose works. I tend to think that there is a greater prose audience than for that of poetry. When it comes to the inevitable issue of dollars and cents, many, if not most people seemingly find the patronizing of prose works more gratifying. Even so, there is apparently something more mysterious and therefore more daunting about poetry; that attribute seems to make a good number of readers who find prose fiction less daunting.

EA: Do you consider poetry a "weaker" genre than the forceful novel, for instance?

KMN: No. Each genre of literature has its most profound and therefore very strong attribute. Every peculiar strand of creativity will provide the needed explosive punch.

EA: Do you believe in the militating power of poetry? Let me quote from one of our famous poets: "I'm a heart within the heart of my people/singing their hatred and love…" Does your poetry exhibit this attitude? Let us also remember that Liberian dailies used to publish a lot of poetry in the late '80s, many of them exceptional.

KMN: Yes. It does have its own distinct power. I attempt to reflect that attitude. Moreso, each purposeful writer is no doubt the voice of the society, the voice of the culture, the voice of the race, the voice of the species that produces it. I see myself as the voice of my people and of humanity.

EA: I know that your interests present variety: prose, poetry, literary history and criticism. Which of these are you more inclined to hold to?

KMN: The writer is like a boat sailing. Like winds and the waves, which determine how the boat crawls through or slashes the waves on a journey, the writer is often stimulated by the undulating winds and waves of inspiration. Each of the genres you've listed attracts my attention. Each has its own enduring place in my writing.

EA: It has been proven by history that once their culture is taken away, people lose their sense of belonging, they lose their tradition and values, and they cease to exist as people of a certain culture and nation. Besides you, are there other people, Liberians specifically, who militate to preserve Liberian culture, keep it original and specific, without essential intrusions that could cause irreversible mutations towards, let's say, Western culture?

KMN: Being in the Diaspora, it's hard for me to be definitive about the number of those Liberians who are very interested in preserving our culture. But I certainly hope that the civil crisis which saw death and destruction on a massive scale in Liberia will teach surviving Liberians the unforgettable lesson of knowing, improving, and believing in themselves. Anything less than that will spell chaos.