Liberian Author Launches Burdens of Darkness

A book titled ‘Burdens of Darkness’ written by one of Liberia’s finest writer and journalist F. Shelton Gonkerwon has been launched in Monrovia. During the launching ceremony over the weekend, author Gonkerwon said that the book is based on his personal experience doing the country’s civil conflict and the bitterness experienced by native Gio and Mano tribes.

The ceremony which was boycotted by all invitees, including Senator Adolphus Dolo, former presidential aspirant Thomas Q. Harris, media practitioners, among other was largely attended by members of the Liberian Association of Writers (LAW).

Mr. Gonkerwon said the Burdens of Darkness is a result of some personal and historical accounts of the dreadful Liberian civil war which, for a period of fourteen years, eroded the soci0-economic, political and human resources of the country.

He noted that the book is also partly arranged autobiographically with poetic flavor in line with the prevailing phenomenon. It also reflects the frequency of the war, from its genesis to the middle and to fatherless, motherless, widowers, orphans, the amputees, devastated towns and villages.

He explained that darkness is the culture of corruption existing across the country based on selflessness at almost all high places as well as poverty, ignorance and illiteracy that remain the common denominator of the Liberian society.

“As Liberians begin a new journey after fifteen uninterrupted years of self destruction, it is hoped that the sadistic experience; the pains and agonies and all other evils that hosted the nation and people for so long would bring a new sense of nationalism and patriotism”, he said.

According to him, the book attempts to let succeeding generations see and feel the consequences of war in order to guide against those things that gave rise to the conflict, which tore the society apart, adding that the judgment of history certainly sets the basis whereby people are able to make appropriate adjustments in the way they think and act.

“It is no doubt that the aftermath of the war is the result of the darkness that currently looms over the nation even though physically, there is daylight”, Shelton, a critical writer, noted.