Prof. Mac Dixon-Fyle Publishes New Perspectives on the Sierra Leone Krio

November 29, 2005

November 29, 2005, Greencastle, Ind. - Mac Dixon-Fyle, professor of history at DePauw University, is co-editor of the new book, New Perspectives on the Sierra Leone Krio. A collaboration with Gibril Cole, who teaches African history at the University of California, Los Angeles, the book is published by Peter Lang USA. Included in the book of 14 chapters is "Rescuing the Footnoted: Immigrant Krio Travails on the Niger 1865-1926" by Mac Dixon-Fyle and "A Bibliography of the Freetown/Krio Experience" by DePauw librarian Joyce Dixon-Fyle.

"The ex-slave, Krio population of Freetown, Sierra Leone -- an amalgam of ethnicities drawn from several parts of the African continent -- is a fascinating study in hybridity, creolization, European cultural penetration, the retention of African cultural values, and the interface between New World returnees and autochthonous populations of West Africa," notes a summary of the book. "Although its Nigerian connections are often acknowledged, insufficient attention has been paid to the indigenous Sierra Leonean roots of this community. This anthology addresses this problem, while celebrating the complexities of Krio identity and Krio interaction with other ethnic groups and nationalities in the British colonial experience." 

Mac Dixon-Fyle received his Ph.D. in history from the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He has published articles on the Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia/Zambia and is the author of A Saro Community in the Niger Delta, 1912-1984: The Potts-Johnsons of Port Harcourt and Their Heirs and co-author of Sierra Leone at the End of the Twentieth Century: History, Politics, and Society.

Read more about New Perspectives on the Sierra Leone Krio at the publisher's Web site.

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