Sundown At Dawn, A Liberian Odyssey
By Wilton Sankawulo
Houston: Dusty Spark Publishing, 2005
ISBN: 0-9763565-0-3

The name Wilton Sankawulo, along with that of Bai T. Moore, is well known throughout Liberia. Many of us were introduced to African literature in school between seventh and ninth grades by professor Sankawulo’s Why Nobody Knows When He Will Die and Bai T. Moore’s Murder In the Cassava Patch.

While Sankawulo’s Why Nobody Knows When He Will Die and The Rain and The Night are folkloric, his latest work, Sundown At Dawn, A Liberian Odyssey, is remarkably different. Sundown At Dawn, A Liberian Odyssey is by far Sankawulo’s most important work, in terms of the themes it covers, namely, the clash of African and western cultures, and political protest against a system of injustice.

The lead character, known variously as Zurong, Joseph Crusoe, Joseph Denise, and finally as Dougba Senfenui Jr., narrates the drama and events that unfold in the novel. The various names are meaningful as each defines a different stage in the narrator’s life. His parents call him Zurong; when he goes to school, Joseph Crusoe becomes his Kwi name; when he is adopted by an Americo-Liberian family and taken to Monrovia, his last name becomes Denise. Utimately, as a tribute to his father and in appreciation of his culture, he drops the Kwi name in favor his father’s country name, Dougba Senfenui.

When Zurong’s father, Oldman Dougba Sanfenui, is commanded by the village to sacrifice Zurong, the Ancestral Shrine does not accept him, as he is an “only son.” In place of his son, the father is required to bring a “full grown bull and ten pounds to redeem” him. The father, worrying about how to obtain the requested items, which are beyond his financial reach, turns to the government-backed, white missionaries, whose goal is to spread “civilization” among the native population through schools. Each town is to provide a certain number of their children toward this effort. In the opinion of those that decide Zurong’s fate, “sending him to school was like killing him,” thereby saving the father the “impossible redemption fees.”

Oldman Dougba Sanfenui wants his son to go to school to learn the ways of the Kwi world, which is a world that exists beyond their traditional Kpelle world. He hopes that with an education his son will enter Kwi society, thereby escaping poverty and the unfortunate fate of most of his peers, whose parents “want them to be farmers, hunters, fishermen, or member of the Poro society.” To inform Zurong about his plans for him, the father makes use of a motivational story with the fictional character, Ngalakemeni. He tells his son that Ngalakemeni “finished school in Kwi people’s big town called Ducor” and as a result, the president appointed him DC (District Commissioner) in Salala District. In such a prominent position, Ngalakemeni becomes the main source of support for his family. With Nglakameni’s success in mind, the oldman motivates his son to learn so he, too, can be a “big man in the Kwi world” in days to come.

Motivated by his father, Zurong suffers many challenges and hardships to fulfill his promise to “finish school.” When Zurong finally graduates, he turns down the opportunity to go to the Kwi world, or America. Rather, he assumes his father’s name, Dougba, and chooses to remain in the village with his people to help empower them. His efforts to spread Kwi ways among his people is met with stiff resistance from those who don’t want anything to do with the “alien culture.” Dougba’s intentions may be right, but he is misunderstood. His case is even made worse by a senator who sees Dougba’s efforts to bring enlightenment and development to his people as a challenge to his political leadership. The senator manipulates the fears and suspicions of the local population, which results in Doubga’s imprisonment and the destruction of the school he had built to educate the children of the area.

Another character in the novel, an educated son from Haindi, has the audacity to question the government’s neglect of its responsibility, and ends up in Belle Yallah, where he meets Dougba and other political prisoners who have been arrested and condemned. During their time of incarceration, most of the Belle Yallah prisoners mysteriously disappear, leaving Dougba to tell their stories while he is still incarcerated.

In the book, no direct reference is made to the radical 1970s or the 1980 coup, in which the 127-year rule of the apartheid-like Americo-Liberian regime is overthrown. The book chronicles an imminent native rebellion against “the system” as far back as the 1950s. In their prison cell in Belle Yallah, Dougba and his fellow cellmates often talk about this rebellion as the only way to end Americo dominance of the natives. Taking this into consideration, it’s fair to say that the 1980 coup was a long time coming and was bound to happen given the ways things were. Though it may be argued that beginning with President Tubman through President Tolbert, the Americo/Native divide was being bridged, it can also be argued that however determinedly President Tolbert tried to right the wrongs, his efforts were not enough to neutralize the anger and resentment that had built as a result of more than a hundred years of oppressive minority rule. We may then conclude that President Tolbert was killed more for the sins of the past.

If Sundown At Dawn, A Liberian Odyssey, had been published in the 1960s or early 1970s, Sankawulo would have emerged as one of the champions of native Liberian resistance against the oppressive, backward, minority Americo-Liberian regime. The question one might ask the author is: “Why now and not then?” Given its themes, Sundown At Dawn, A Liberian Odyssey, would have placed Sankawulo among the ranks of such renowned African writers as Chinua Achebe of Nigeria and Ngugi wa Thiong’o of Kenya. The passionate, resistant spirit demonstrated by professor Sankawulo in this novel does not match with the Sankawulo we know. The Sankawulo we know wrote folklore, worked within the system, and became an appointed leader of the rebel-dominated government, in which he was just a nominal head, while the rebel leaders were in control. By writing this novel, professor Sankawulo has proven that one can be a compliant servant in “the system” and still harbor feelings of resentment and rebellion, until an appropriate time comes to reveal them.