VAMBA SHERIF: I was born in Kolahun, a forest town in the far north of Liberia. My childhood was spent in that town with one foot constantly in the world of books, and the other in the harsh reality of life in the hinterland. I cannot say that my childhood was a difficult one, but cannot describe it as idyllic either. I lived my life in the protection of a large African family, but this life had its own downside, for specific attention was not paid to each child but to a bunch of children. Talents, therefore, often went unnoticed, but not in all cases. Some talents, despite all the difficulties, were noticed and nurtured by the family, and today those talents have matured.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: You are from Liberia, an English speaking country in Africa, but you have written novels in Dutch, a language you did not grow up speaking. How did you do that?

VAMBA SHERIF: To answer this question, I must first of all give a brief history of my presence in the Netherlands. I fled the war in Kuwait, the first Gulf War, and because my country Liberia was at war, I sought refuge in the Netherlands.

Now, I could not expect to lead life in another country with a language of its own without trying at least to master that language. Learning Dutch, I thought, was necessary to realising my dream of pursuing my studies. In the end I read law, but literature remained my greatest passion.

In all secrecy, I worked on my first novel. At a certain point, I felt that my writing was going nowhere, that I was searching for light in a dark tunnel of insecurity and lack of confidence. I was stuck. That’s when I put the novel aside and tried my hands at writing short stories. With one of them, Faces, I realised that I had found my voice. I sent a collection of those stories to a Dutch publishing house, and a week later the publisher called me to discuss the possibility of publishing them. I told him about my novel, which he was anxious to read. He read it in two days and called me to suggest that we publish the novel first. The novel was published to critical and commercial success.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: At what point in your life did you decide to be a writer?

VAMBA SHERIF: There was no point in my life when I decided to be a writer. Since childhood I’ve been fascinated with the world of literature. The possibility of words leave me enthralled. No medium in the world, except in some cases music, has the power to subdue me and make me more grateful to be alive than literature. It grasps me by the senses, and all I can do is shout with joy or shed tears.

Literature leaves me speechless, heartbroken. Sometimes a scene, and not the whole novel, a sentence, and not a chapter, strikes me like a thunderbolt; or it carries me on sensual wings toward pleasures and pains unimaginable.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: The English translation of the title of your first novel published in 1999 is, The Land of the Fathers. What is it about?

VAMBA SHERIF: The novel is historical. It’s set in nineteenth century Africa. It describes the founding of Liberia, and the interaction of the freed slaves, the so-called Americo-Liberians, with the tribes that were already living on that western coast of Africa.

It was not an easy interaction. Frequently it was characterised by ignorance on both sides, but especially on the part of the Americo-Liberians. They were a vulnerable people: they lived in a freed state, when all around them the British and the French were carving up Africa. Moreover, the tribes were still trading in slaves. The new republic, which no one believed would ever survive, found itself trapped between fear of falling apart and the inability to understand the forces around them: the British and the French on one hand, the tribes on the other.

The tribes, used to dealing with the British and the French, saw the founding of Liberia as a threat to their existing trades in slaves, ivory and other goods. The novel is a story of friendship. One of the two main characters, Edward Richard, a man born into slavery, leaves America in search of his beloved Charlotte. In Liberia, he’s confronted with a country that’s trying to stand on its feet. Edward, a preacher by profession, believes that the future of Liberia lies in working together with the tribes. He goes into the hinterland, preaching the word of God. There, in the far north, he meets a man who becomes his friend: Halay, or Halayngi, as the Gbandis pronounce it.

The story of Halayngi is very popular in northern Liberia. Halay, or Halayngi, was a man who sacrificed himself, like Jesus did, to save that part of the world from all wars. With his death, the people believed, all wars would be averted. But the irony of history is that a century later a war would ravage the land, sweeping up in its destructive path the descendants of Edward and Halay.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: You have an interesting background. You attended Madrassa, went to Kuwait for further study in Arabic and Islamic studies, and now you are a writer. How has the transition been for you?

VAMBA SHERIF: I can only describe it as flexible. I look at the world as my home. My happiness is not confined to a specific boundary. My only fear is the inability to pursue my dreams.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: You have sold thousands copies of your first novel, The Land of the Fathers. That puts you in the league of the best-selling writers in the world. Can you describe the feeling of success?

VAMBA SHERIF: Success is relative. However, I’m glad that readers have taken to the story.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: Do you owe your success as a writer to the fact that you wrote in Dutch instead of English?

VAMBA SHERIF: I don’t owe my success to the fact that the book was published in Dutch, but to the quality of the writing and the story. In Holland there are more than a hundred new writers every year, and out of that hundred only one or two books are taken seriously.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: What is the English title of your second novel?

VAMBA SHERIF: The title of my second novel is The kingdom of Sebah. It came out in 2003.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: Are the two novels dealing with the same issues, or what are the differences and similarites between both?

VAMBA SHERIF: The kingdom of Sebah is the story of a woman, Sebah, who settles with her husband and two children in the Netherlands. Mansakeh, the son and the narrator of the story, describes the difficulties the family faces in trying to integrate into the Dutch society. But there is another problem in the family much more difficult to deal with than the attempt to integrate: a secret that follows them from Africa, and which threatens to break them apart.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: Every writer’s dream is for their works to impact the society they come from. Do you hope to impact Liberia one way or the other?

VAMBA SHERIF: I hope, when the books are published in English, that Liberians can read them. They are my way of looking at the world, or of giving shape to my experiences, or in the words of Toni Morrison, “a private thing for public consumption.”

NVASEKIE KONNEH: Are your novels fictional accounts of your true life or are they based on pure imagination?

VAMBA SHERIF: A writer is always formed by the things he sees and experiences, and it’s difficult to tell where pure imagination ends and non-fictional accounts begin.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: With the success of your work so far, can you call writing a career?’

VAMBA SHERIF: Yes, it’s my life, my passion, and the only discipline that gives my life a meaning.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: When growing up in Liberia, which of the Liberian writers or African writers did you admire?

VAMBA SHERIF: Oh, there were many. I admired the simply written but gratifying novella by Bai T. Moore, Murder in the Cassava Patch, and the works of Wilton Sankawulo, especially The Rain and the Night, and his short stories. I read with great pleasure the works of other African writers like Achebe, Soyinka, Bediako Asare, Aye Kwei Armah, Benard Dadie, Nurrudin Farah, Camara Laye and his Radiance of the King, Yambo Ouologuem and his Bound to Violence, and dozens of others.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: What has been the response of Liberians or Africans to your work, since it’s written in a language that is not spoken in Africa?

VAMBA SHERIF: There are some Africans in the Netherlands who have read and admired my novels, but until they are published in English I cannot count on a wider African readership.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: As a writer, what message do you have for Liberia as we emerge from 15 years of brutal war?

VAMBA SHERIF: My message is that Liberians should behave the way the character, Halayngi, in my first novel did: they should do everything to avoid another war and work together towards building a better future.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: In Liberia, the issue of ethnicity and religion are very important. How do you deal with them as a writer?

VAMBA SHERIF: By trying in my own way not to confine my novels to specific groups of people in Liberia, but to write as such that the message becomes universal. Ethnicity is an illusion, a way of identifying us at birth, something we cannot avoid. But we have the obligation as adults to forge a new identity for ourselves, an identity in which others have a place in our lives, despite colour, creed or place of birth.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: What is the best way to describe you as a writer? A Dutch writer, or Liberian Dutch writer?

VAMBA SHERIF: You can best describe me as a Liberian writer.

NVASEKIE KONNEH: As a contemporary Liberian writer, are you in touch with other contemporary Liberian writers, and how would you describe contemporary Liberian writings, as compared to the works of older writers such as Bai T. Moore or Wilton Sankawulo?

VAMBA SHERIF: I’m not in touch with other Liberian writers, which I regret. But I’ve read the works of such writers like Mr. Nagbe, Mr. Dustin Macaulay, Mrs. Kandakai, and others. I’ve also read your work, Going to War for America. I regularly visit the Liberian literary website, Liberia Sea Breeze. Some of the short stories published on Liberia Sea Breeze are well written.