Vamba Sherif
Vamba Sherif (b. 1973) was born in Liberia and grew up partly in Kuwait. He fled that country during the First Gulf War and came to the Netherlands in 1993.
His debut novel Land of the Fathers (1999) is partly based on his grandmother’s stories and deals with the interactions between the enslaved Africans returning from the US and other Liberians. Zwijgplicht (Bound to Secrecy, 2007), a whodunit about a man investigating a disappearance, describes the way power and its abuse function in Africa. His novel The Black Napoleon (2015) portrays Samori Touré, who, in the 19th century, founded the Wasulu-empire in western Africa. His journalistic work, including film reviews, appears in publications like The New York Times, Trouw and One World. In 2021 Ongekende liefde (Unprecedented Love) was published.
