Michael Fayia Kallon

Idols with Tears Michael Fayia Kallon

Idols With Tears is a story Kallon often heard repeated (and rumoured to be true) as a child growing up. The love affair between Kumba and Tamba; takes place somewhere between 1910 and 1920. Michael Kallon is a native of Sierra Leone, West Africa and has been in the United States on political asylum for nearly two decades. This long separation from his homeland must certainly be difficult and painful, but in the pages of Idols With Tears it is evident that his memory and love of his country are strong, the passing years have not eroded his identification with Sierra Leone. Nevertheless, Kallon's primary identification is not with Sierra Leone, in particular, but with his people, the Kissi, one of the many ethnic groups in the region whose history stretches back long before the European colonial period. The fact that Idols With Tears is the first book to be written about the Kissi people is at the heart of Kallon's sense of its importance.