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Arthur Edgar E. Smith
Arthur Edgar E. Smith was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he grew up and was schooled.
His schooling started in the east-end of Freetown at the Holy Trinity School for Boys...view moreArthur Edgar E. Smith was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he grew up and was schooled.
His schooling started in the east-end of Freetown at the Holy Trinity School for Boys located then at Kissy Road and Fourah Bay Road.
He entered The Prince of Wales School at Kingtom in the West-end of Freetown in 1967. He passed his G.C.E O’ Level exams in 1972 with a distinction in English.
He then proceeded to the Albert Academy, just at the tip of the Mount Aureol, leading to Fourah Bay College. He spent two years here preparing for his A level exams. During this period he became exposed to much great literature at the school library. He was already writing regularly and contributing articles and stories to local radio programs.
When he was admitted into the Arts faculty, Fourah Bay College, where he met a wider selection of literary personalities, that was to give him greater opportunities of harnessing his talents. He joined literary clubs on campus as well as the national association of writers for which he eventually became Secretary-General.
At Fourah Bay College he offered courses in English, Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science. He later secured a post graduate Diploma in Education and an M.A. in African Literature.
Since 1977 he has taught English at the Prince of Wales School and Milton Margai College of Education before moving over to Fourah Bay College where he has been lecturing various aspects of English including Literature and Creative Writing for over twelve years.
He is a Senior Lecturer and also Editor PEN Sierra Leone.
Mr. Smith's writings have appeared in West Africa Magazine, Index on Censorship, Focus on Library and Information Work, EzineArticles.com, articlesland.com, articlesland,com, suite101 amongst many other media.
He participated in an international seminar on contemporary American Literature in the U.S. which got him to San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati visiting various sites of cultural interest and earned him an Honorary Citizenship of Louisville in 2006.
His publications include: Folktales from Freetown, Langston Hughes: Life and Works Celebrating Black Dignity, and 'The Struggle of the Book in Sierra Leone'.
The title story 'Day of Judgement' has been translated into Bulgarian.
His essays on Literature could be read at ChickenBones: A Journal for literary and artistic african-american themes.
He was a delegate to the 73rd International PEN Congress in Dakar, Senegal June 2007. He has served as judge for many literary writing and drama competitions, the latest being the National Essay Competition leading up to the Sierra Leone Conference on Transformation and Development.
In October 2008 he delivered a paper as part of the Centennial celebrations of African American writer, Richard Wright’s birth at an International Conference at the University of Beira, Corvilha, Portugal.
The new prolonged processing time for U.K visas made him not to participate in the 2009 Cadbury conference as part of the panel on Sierra Leone Literature in the University of Birmingham.view less