Review by Choice Review
In a laborious work of social history, Jones (independent scholar of literature) pieces together extant evidence, including the surviving works, of Sierra Leone--born writer and activist A. B. C. Merriman-Labor. As recently as 1977 Merriman-Labor was acclaimed as "a pioneer of modern African literature" (p. 5) but he is otherwise lost to the dustbin of history. The result of Jones's work is an engaging, worthwhile biography. Merriman-Labor's writing--including Britons through Negro Spectacles (1909), a satirical take on Britain through the eyes of an African sojourner--is largely inconsequential in a literary sense, but his experiences as writer, activist, barrister, civil servant, pan-Africanist, black Briton, munitions worker, and workhouse resident shed light on the world from the perspective of man who occupied a social, political, and cultural space "in between." Because of the ephemerality and limits of Merriman-Labor's existence in the historical record, Jones relies heavily on tangential primary and secondary sources to provide the context for and meaning of her subject's life. Herein lies the work's greatest strength and its most significant shortcoming: Jones uncovers the life of a historical ghost, nearly lost to the world, but the evidentiary framework is by definition scant. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Charles V. Reed, Elizabeth City State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
