Tijan M. Sallah: Economist, Poet/Writer, Renaissance Man Releases New Book

Tijan M. Sallah: Economist, Poet/Writer, Renaissance Man Releases New Book

Water is peat, manure to sprouting seedlings.

Water is germ-root, river to the vitality of the heart.

Water is dreams, restoring glitter

To the future of our farms.

These lines are from the newly released poetry collection of Tijan M. Sallah, Dream Kingdom: New and Selected Poems (available at Politics and Prose bookstore), a work, the poet describes, as a selective compilation of my published and unpublished poems at midlife.“Midlife,” the poet reflects in the volume, “is the peak of the mountain of life.I look down and fear the fall.Dreams descend from their unrealism to the ground.”Economist, poet, short story writer, essayist, Sallah is a well grounded mind, who is comfortable with practical life as with discourses on economics, history, philosophy, and comparative religions. Engage him in a conversation, and you will readily find you are dealing with a truly fascinating, renaissance mind. He has a deep understanding of African history and cultures and a strong commitment to social justice.He has been featured in many of the major African anthologies of poetry and short stories, interviewed over the BBC and NPR, and is currently a Lead Operations Officer on agriculture and rural development in the Africa Region.Besides his economic career, he is one of Africa’s most famous poets of the new generation and indeed a strong contender for the poet laureate of the Gambia.

It is said, economists speak a dry technical language to capture human behavior under scarcity. Poets, on the other hand, tap into their imagination and create deeper narratives about felt reality. Fuse the two and you get Tijan Sallah, an economist and accomplished published poet and writer, whose dazzling new volume of poems resemble the work of an African T.S. Eliot.

Sallah was kind to talk about both dimensions of his life and careers, beginning with his work at the Bank. Currently, he is leading a team that is implementing an irrigation project in Malawi, which covers eleven districts. I asked him about the Irrigation project he is task managing, and Sallah, the economist, notes, “Malawi is a country that faces problems of water variability and consequent yield volatility, and is still very dependent on rainfall for its agriculture. We are attempting to support the country to manage that. He described the irrigation project, which includes water harvesting for supplementary irrigation and strengthening of water management associations-- as a “hedge against water shortage risk”.

Sallah evinces passion when he talks about Africa’s economic prospects, in general, and smallholder agricultural producers in Malawi, in particular, that his team is trying to assist. “Malawi faces huge land pressures. Average landholding is less than one hectare per average household of about six,” Sallah noted. “Continuous cropping on small farm sizes has caused substantial soil mining and depleted soil fertility, a problem that the government of Malawi and the Bank have tried to address by making fertilizers available and by supporting soil conservation measures.” Sallah hopes that these measures will help make food deficits in Malawi history and will assist the country establish a sustainably growing rural economy. “The challenge is to try to ensure that the communities receive the resources and technical support earmarked for them at the right time to make a difference, and that the support we provide is done sustainably and does note undermine the development of the private sector,” Sallah said.

Alternating from his Bank work as a development expert, Sallah donned his literary cap. According to him, there is really no conflict between economics and literature.Commenting on his newly released book, he said they complement each other. “I have often said that economics speaks to the head, and literature (poetry) speaks to the heart.” In fact, Sallah's interest in literarture/poetry predates his career in economics. It goes back to his high school days in his home country of The Gambia. “I was introduced to English literature and poetry by Irish Holy Ghosts fathers at my Catholic high school, St. Augustine’s.We also had a heavy dose of the Old Testament and New Testament Bible and several British literary classics— by Shakespeare, Orwell and the other British literary masters,” Sallah narrated.“Father Joseph Gough particularly sparked and honed my imagination into writing. My interest was further shaped when African authors such as Chinua Achebe were introduced into the curriculum. It spoke directly to our experience in ways that European writers didn’t and I got hooked.” His first published poem, “The African Redeemer”—a tribute to Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, appeared in the school newspaper.Then Sallah continued his high school in Georgia, the United States, during which he studied the poetic craft under respectful masters, such as American poet, H. L van Brunt. Sallah published his first poem in America, “Worm Eaters” in the Atlanta Gazette in 1977. He continued for his undergraduate work in economics at Berea College in Kentucky and then his Ph.D. in economics at Virginia Tech under the public choice theorists (Geoffrey Brenan, T. Nicolas Tideman, Gordon Tullock, and James Buchanan) where he both graduated as an outstanding student, and taught for a few years at some American universities.Throughout this period, he kept his literary fires burning.

As an undergraduate at Berea College, his first book of poems, “When Africa Was A Young Woman,” was published in India in 1980 and received rave reviews, including a favorable review over the BBC’s “Focus on Africa” program. He has since maintained a steady literary output, and has published to date seven books—spanning fiction and non-fictional works.He has published an ethnography on the Wolof peoples of Senegambia; a biography of Africa’s most famous novelist, Chinua Achebe (which he co-authored); a book of short stories; several original works and anthologies of poetry; and several articles in political economy, literary and art criticism. Several masters’ theses and doctoral dissertations have also been published about his literary works in France, US and United Kingdom.Sallah’s works have been praised by prominent literary critics in the US and UK, and he has an extensive network of friends and admirers, including several Nobel Laureates: Nadine Gordimer, Wole Soyinka, and authors: Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.Recently, the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum for African American history and Culture used quotations from his work in the front page of their museum-opening brochure.

In commenting on his newly released book, “Dream Kingdom,” Sallah notes, “Midlife is a stage where life’s possibilities narrow to probabilities. You stare at the end more forthrightly and say, is this what the human instrument harvests afterall?” The poems in the new collection cover a range of topics: nostalgia for homeland, the experience of sojourn abroad, cultural/political themes, existential themes, introspection; and dreams. Savor these lines, for example, from his long poem, “Death: A Millenial Meditation:”

The capitalists of death

Never think they will die.

So is their perennial illusion, the Death Illusion.

I do not blame them for death is a coward.

For capitalists, mortality is for others; not for them.

Money will flow, and the body can be revamped;

Spare parts are many, the body will adjust.

Money will flow, and may be even buy immortality.

But, but… are they not mistaken?

Sallah is undoubtedly, as a critic described him, a powerful imagination and master of the word.Aside from work and writing and voracious reading of classical texts, he spends time with his Malian wife, who has Ph.D. in satellite engineering, who is a manager at Intelsat, and daughter of 13 and son of 9 years old.An avid jogger, who suffered a nasty car hit as a pedestrian in London, which left him with a spiral fracture on his femur, Sallah still manages to trot a mile when he can.He devotes an entire section to that accident experience in this new book—a section titled, “Harrow: London Poems of Convalescence.” He reminisces, “It was a near death experience.I was truly lucky.But I don’t dwell on it—given the more severe suffering of people around the world.”

Contributed by John Mulaa, EXTIC