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No Past No Present No Future
Book by Yulisa Amadu Maddy
- GenresAfrica
210 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1997
About the author
Yulisa Amadu Pat Maddy
6 books6 followersYulisa Amadu Pat Maddy (27 December 1936 - 16 March 2014) was a Sierra Leonean writer, poet, actor, dancer, director and playwright. Known by his friends and colleagues as Pat Maddy or simply Prof, he had an "immense impact" on theatre in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Zambia.
Maddy was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he grew up and was educated (attending St Edward's Secondary School) until the age of 22. In 1958 he travelled to France and then Britain. Maddy trained at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in the UK, and started broadcasting in Britain and Denmark, writing and producing radio plays. He was Director of Drama at the Keskidee Centre in London. Maddy's early plays, initially produced on the BBC African Service, were published as Obasai and Other Plays (1968). In the mid-1960s he lived in Denmark, where a book of his poetry, Ny afrikansk prosa, was published (1969).
On his return to Sierra Leone in 1968 he became Head of Drama on Radio Sierra Leone. He was a founder-director of the theatre company Gbakanda Afrikan Tiata, founded 1969 in Freetown. He subsequently worked in Zambia, where he directed the national dance troupe and trained them for the Montreal World's Fair in 1970. He also taught drama in Nigeria, at the University of Ibadan and the University of Ilorin, and in the United States.
His first novel, No Past, No Present, No Future, explored the dynamics of a group of three friends (including, controversially, at the time, one gay man) growing up in colonial West Africa and their physical, psychological and emotional journeys to Europe. It was published in 1973, to great acclaim in the Heinemann African Writers Series, and his writing continued to develop. His work, which is often challenging and confrontational, has been broadcast by the BBC and published internationally. However the uncompromising honesty of his writing, particularly in his views on the social and political inequalities in Africa, led to his political imprisonment in Sierra Leone. Upon his release, he was forced to leave the country and become a political exile.
He received a Sierra Leone National Arts Festival Award in 1973, a Gulbenkian Grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1978, and in 1979 an Edinburgh Festival Award. He has also received the distinction of being commemorated in a special stained-glass window of the Pride Library in Canada, as one of 135 writers, including William Shakespeare, Federico Garcia Lorca, W. H. Auden and others who have been acknowledged for their outstanding contribution to literature.
In 2007, Maddy returned to Sierra Leone to teach at Freetown’s Milton Margai College of Education and continue his academic research of exploring and developing Sierra Leone’s cultural heritage; providing inspiration and opportunities to a new generation of artists and performers; and continuing to give a "voice to the voiceless" through the work of his Gbakanda Foundation. After a long period of illness, he died in March 2014, aged 78, at Choitram Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
(from Wikipedia)
Maddy was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he grew up and was educated (attending St Edward's Secondary School) until the age of 22. In 1958 he travelled to France and then Britain. Maddy trained at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in the UK, and started broadcasting in Britain and Denmark, writing and producing radio plays. He was Director of Drama at the Keskidee Centre in London. Maddy's early plays, initially produced on the BBC African Service, were published as Obasai and Other Plays (1968). In the mid-1960s he lived in Denmark, where a book of his poetry, Ny afrikansk prosa, was published (1969).
On his return to Sierra Leone in 1968 he became Head of Drama on Radio Sierra Leone. He was a founder-director of the theatre company Gbakanda Afrikan Tiata, founded 1969 in Freetown. He subsequently worked in Zambia, where he directed the national dance troupe and trained them for the Montreal World's Fair in 1970. He also taught drama in Nigeria, at the University of Ibadan and the University of Ilorin, and in the United States.
His first novel, No Past, No Present, No Future, explored the dynamics of a group of three friends (including, controversially, at the time, one gay man) growing up in colonial West Africa and their physical, psychological and emotional journeys to Europe. It was published in 1973, to great acclaim in the Heinemann African Writers Series, and his writing continued to develop. His work, which is often challenging and confrontational, has been broadcast by the BBC and published internationally. However the uncompromising honesty of his writing, particularly in his views on the social and political inequalities in Africa, led to his political imprisonment in Sierra Leone. Upon his release, he was forced to leave the country and become a political exile.
He received a Sierra Leone National Arts Festival Award in 1973, a Gulbenkian Grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1978, and in 1979 an Edinburgh Festival Award. He has also received the distinction of being commemorated in a special stained-glass window of the Pride Library in Canada, as one of 135 writers, including William Shakespeare, Federico Garcia Lorca, W. H. Auden and others who have been acknowledged for their outstanding contribution to literature.
In 2007, Maddy returned to Sierra Leone to teach at Freetown’s Milton Margai College of Education and continue his academic research of exploring and developing Sierra Leone’s cultural heritage; providing inspiration and opportunities to a new generation of artists and performers; and continuing to give a "voice to the voiceless" through the work of his Gbakanda Foundation. After a long period of illness, he died in March 2014, aged 78, at Choitram Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 8, 2023
I admit it was difficult to get through the first part of the book [no past], and i understand why now. the characters were flat, innocent, and almost boring, but they got more and more interesting, and their depth increased, the more you get into the novel. the most interesting part i believe was the last part [no future]. it was compelling and moving.
Joe is perhaps my favorite character. i find the part where he judges people based on their behaviors and not their race very interesting. in one discussion with Santige, he pointed out that the things that white people do can also be found in African. when he comes out to Bodil, shocking her with his open queerness, he also tells her he hopes she looks at Africans differently from now on and realizes that they're just as diverse as white people or europeans. part of me wants to think so.
but the other part is Santige, where, even though i can understand that people are just people everywhere, i still white people, have a sort of entitlement, universal entitlement, unfounded and unwarranted entitlement, nowhere to be found in any place on earth.
but don't get me wrong, this book wasn't about whiteness or racism, it was about blackness, being an African, dreaming in wake and sleep for a better world. this book was about love and friendship. the dynamics between the three fluctuating. the author was biased, despite being omnipresent. Ade has changed after being in london, but his change against his friends wasn't explained as much as Santige's or Joe's (if once could say that Joe has changed at all). i don't yet understand Santige's arch. his development into this bitter man who uses white women to get back at the white society is too simple and too straightforward, to say the least. while his conversations of fascism indicates more underlying ideology than just sleeping with white women. i don't know if it's too awful to say that i excepted more. his speech was outrageous and beautiful, but also confused in character and confusing to analyze. Joe was unfortunate and fortunate at the same time. he found love in a white boy named michael, he got kicked out of his dream university, he almost killed himself, eventually turning into nihilist, believing all humanity to be rubbish, which is suiting a black gay man in the sixties. Ade is the saddest of them all. if Santige failed miserably and never amounted to anything, Ade got everything and lost it all at once. i found his dynamic as an african elite with his two other friends of be very interesting. he acted superior while in african, but in europe, it pained him so very much to realize that he is on equal footing with his two pitiful friends in the eyes of british society.
These are the men of the novel. women in the novel are the definition of a one-dimensional characters. they exist to serve purposes that will advance the story, to antagonize the character or be antagonized by characters, or as means of revenge or sexual or emotional catharsis for men. the men in the novel are outrageously misogynists, including Joe, if he isn't the worst. they have no agency, and their dialogues are fillings to conversations, flat, and shallow. women in europe have more voice and agency than african women (except for sabina, the whore, but she was also there to torment Joe) which makes me wonder if the author was intentional in his images.
when the book was published it caused an outcry because there was a positive gay character in it. but his gayness is a curious portrayal honestly. he was raped by a catholic priest in his young. although his friends accused him of using the priest. (this is how we find out. joe never talks about it.) interestingly, what joe talks about is how women are easy, cheaters, and vile. he has known two women mary he slept with ade without the slightest of ojection. and Bola who ran aways with another man for his money. joe isn't gay naturally. there were conditions to his conditions, there was causations that altered his nature, it seems, and women are central to this scheme. Joe is gay because he failed with women and they broke his heart.
Joe is perhaps my favorite character. i find the part where he judges people based on their behaviors and not their race very interesting. in one discussion with Santige, he pointed out that the things that white people do can also be found in African. when he comes out to Bodil, shocking her with his open queerness, he also tells her he hopes she looks at Africans differently from now on and realizes that they're just as diverse as white people or europeans. part of me wants to think so.
but the other part is Santige, where, even though i can understand that people are just people everywhere, i still white people, have a sort of entitlement, universal entitlement, unfounded and unwarranted entitlement, nowhere to be found in any place on earth.
but don't get me wrong, this book wasn't about whiteness or racism, it was about blackness, being an African, dreaming in wake and sleep for a better world. this book was about love and friendship. the dynamics between the three fluctuating. the author was biased, despite being omnipresent. Ade has changed after being in london, but his change against his friends wasn't explained as much as Santige's or Joe's (if once could say that Joe has changed at all). i don't yet understand Santige's arch. his development into this bitter man who uses white women to get back at the white society is too simple and too straightforward, to say the least. while his conversations of fascism indicates more underlying ideology than just sleeping with white women. i don't know if it's too awful to say that i excepted more. his speech was outrageous and beautiful, but also confused in character and confusing to analyze. Joe was unfortunate and fortunate at the same time. he found love in a white boy named michael, he got kicked out of his dream university, he almost killed himself, eventually turning into nihilist, believing all humanity to be rubbish, which is suiting a black gay man in the sixties. Ade is the saddest of them all. if Santige failed miserably and never amounted to anything, Ade got everything and lost it all at once. i found his dynamic as an african elite with his two other friends of be very interesting. he acted superior while in african, but in europe, it pained him so very much to realize that he is on equal footing with his two pitiful friends in the eyes of british society.
These are the men of the novel. women in the novel are the definition of a one-dimensional characters. they exist to serve purposes that will advance the story, to antagonize the character or be antagonized by characters, or as means of revenge or sexual or emotional catharsis for men. the men in the novel are outrageously misogynists, including Joe, if he isn't the worst. they have no agency, and their dialogues are fillings to conversations, flat, and shallow. women in europe have more voice and agency than african women (except for sabina, the whore, but she was also there to torment Joe) which makes me wonder if the author was intentional in his images.
when the book was published it caused an outcry because there was a positive gay character in it. but his gayness is a curious portrayal honestly. he was raped by a catholic priest in his young. although his friends accused him of using the priest. (this is how we find out. joe never talks about it.) interestingly, what joe talks about is how women are easy, cheaters, and vile. he has known two women mary he slept with ade without the slightest of ojection. and Bola who ran aways with another man for his money. joe isn't gay naturally. there were conditions to his conditions, there was causations that altered his nature, it seems, and women are central to this scheme. Joe is gay because he failed with women and they broke his heart.
January 24, 2024
Read this book if you want to get a feel of what Sierra Leone was like in the 1960s - we see already the weight of diamonds and its get-rich quick ethos, of corruption, of class differences between urban Krios and people from the hinterland, ... You will not however get compelling characters, nuanced dialogue and analysis, or in-depth perspectives on the past, present or future of Sierra Leone. Also be prepared to accept a lot of misogyny.
December 31, 2016
An interesting novel, although I didn't find the main characters very engaging. The three men who are at the core of the story are friends - but with friends like those, they don't need enemies.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews