Archive - December 23, 2024

Before Before by Betsy Small (Sierra Leone 1984-87) University of Michigan Press 200 pages March 2025 $19.95 (Paperback); $70.00 (Hardback)       ABOUT THIS BOOK Sierra Leone is often sensationalized as a place of extreme violence and suffering—of blood diamonds, child soldiers, war amputations, and Ebola and now the highly addictive drug Kush. Before Before captures daily life in a different country, one Betsy Small first encountered as a Peace Corps worker between 1984–1987, and then rediscovered when she returned decades later with her daughter. Living in Tokpombu, a remote community of forty rice-farming families, the author faced struggles that changed her forever and witnessed the growing tensions in this rainforest village—between the young and old, between the traditions of oral history and honoring the ancestors valued by the elders and the siren call of the illicit diamond mines faced by the youth. Before Before offers a rare portrait of everyday people, . . .