Bakar Mansaray

My Afro-Canadian Chronicle Bakar Mansaray

This autobiography discovers a family background and helps the author to establish a sense of personal identity and self-worth. It sheds light on the devastating effects of underdevelopment on a country that went through one of the most atrocious civil wars in modern history. "My Afro-Canadian Chronicle" subverts the plot of self-portrait; rather it narrates the history of an emergent African nation at the crossroad of transition, the nuances of its cultural heritage, societal hierarchy, beliefs and aspirations through the stories of a family. In this book humanity oozes out in shades and slides, almost as if one watches the silver screen of a historical movie. The interplay between the mystical and the natural, the surreal and the real gives the feel of reading pages of a Garcia Marquez literature of magical realism. In Mansaray's Africa, and Canada, as portrayed in My Afro-Canadian Chronicle, reality is both real and magical while science limps along with prosthesis.