NEW YORK The Big Apple is full of luxury and riches as it is home to many wealthy inhabitants. In Michael F. Kallon new novel, Walking With a Cane: New York City Food Stamps War (now available through AuthorHouse), he exposes the city dichotomy of wealth and despair by giving a voice to the desperate poor.
At the close of the 20th century, the mayor of New York introduces a new workfare program leaving the poor cut off from food stamps. The program employs the largest number of untrained sanitation workers in the history of the city. A parade of sick men and women, mothers with children and homeless march to the government agencies putting innocent social workers at the front lines of a social war. The administration decision to deny assistance deprives the poor of the basic human right of food.
The main character, Zombo, representing the author, has been disabled by a spinal injury inflicted by medical treatment. His struggle to survive in New York heightens his awareness of the dismal situation of numerous city residents. He decides to document the horrific events that send sick people back to work and leave the poor striving to make ends meet by battling obstacles upheld by legislation, doctors, human resource administrators and judges.
Walking With a Cane is a sincere look at the struggling poor of New York and the true effects of changing city policy.
Kallon is a native of Sierra Leone on Africa west coast. He moved to the United States after escaping war in Liberia and Sierra Leone. He attended Catholic schools in Sierra Leone and obtained an associate degree in education from Kakata Teachers Training College in Kakata, Liberia. In the United States he received a bachelor degree in writing and literature form Burlington College and a diploma for freelance writing from Harcourt Higher Learning in Scranton, Pa. He has written many works on KISSI culture in Africa and also life in the United States. He previously published Idols With Tears (available through AuthorHouse). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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BOOK IS UNDERGOING REPRINTING BY SIERRA LEONEAN WRITERS SERIES (SLWS), AND WILL BE OUT IN A DIFFERENT FORMAT SOON.
SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE...
Idols with Tears New Novel Preserves Fading African Culture
ARVERNE, N.Y. Before the footmen of the modern world sliced through the thick jungles of Africa, it flourished unspoiled. However, since imperialism has stripped much of the old ways, many cultures have been nearly lost. Michael F. Kallon revisits the Kissi tribe and its ways in a revealing new novel, Idols with Tears (now available through AuthorHouse).
According to Kallon, the Kissi people were tribes that populated the areas of West Africa that are known today as Sierra Leone, Liberia and French-Guinea. His book takes place before the arrival of the foreigners who brought Christianity and Islam in tow. Set deep in the jungles of Sierra Leone, the novel tells the tale of Tamba Kolloh and his love for the late chief priest daughter, Kumba Mongor. When the ghost of Nyuma Mongor mysteriously chooses Tamba to be the next chief priest of the village of Yilandu, he must bear the immense responsibility without losing his love. His ardent love for Kumba becomes the talk of the village as they organize separate societies for both the boys and girls. They also carry out the rituals of their forbearers and launch a witch hunt to stop the mysterious witches that have been embarking on hellish killing sprees. As Tamba accepts and excels at his responsibilities, Kallon uses the opportunity to detail the sophistication of the Kissi people and preserve their ways by chronicling their rituals and traditions. An insightful novel that offers Americans an introduction to the Kissi people, Idols with Tears unveils the mysteries that surround the misunderstood continent and explains the depth of their sophistication. Born in Koindu, a prominent business center in the Kissi Chiefdom located in Eastern Sierra Leone, Kallon was educated at Christian schools in Sierra Leone and Liberia. He sought further education in America. He graduated as a private investigator from the Detective Training Institute in California and earned a degree in creative writing and literature from Burlington College. He also worked as a freelance writer. Kallon has lived in New York since he escaped the human slaughter that plagued Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1980s and 90s. Idols with Tears is his first novel. Michael Fayia Kallon (Author) Email address: Kallonb@aol.com March 29, 2013 Philadelphia, USA Cell: 347 721 5078 ..............................................................................................................................THE GHOSTS OF NGAINGAH 
Published by the Sierra Leonean Writers Series Preface
The Ghosts of Ngaingah is about a village located in the Kissi-Kama Chiefdom in the northeastern region of the Republic of Sierra Leone on Africas west coast, and a ritual curse that befell it. The Kissi have lived in that village since ancient times. Upon their refusal to follow ancient traditional practices at the local oracle near the Kuyoh Mountain, and at a shrine on the bank of Ndopie River, they heard a mysterious dirge one morning, before the sun reached its zenith. The villagers saw a crowd of ghosts with bundles on their heads, and accompanied by lots of animals. They were repeatedly chanting a mysterious dirge. The ghosts entered crevices in the Kuyoh Mountain and disappeared. The scratches they left on the hard rocks are still visible. According to my mother, who was a young woman when the incident took place, it probably happened in the mid 1940s. This narrative, which contains humor, mischief and magic demonstrates how powerfully tradition and custom influenced the lives of the people of one ethnic group -- the Kissi. The mystery of the singing ghosts still haunts them and. I am telling the story so readers may know about one of the Twentieth Century enduring mysteries.Some names in this work are fictitious, excluding the famous Paramount Chief Ansumana Jabba, alias Memah of Kissi-Kama Chiefdom, who lived at Dia, and that of Chief Sombo, who actually lived in Ngaingah during that time;, nevertheless what you are about to read is an eyewitness account of what occurred in that Kissi village.
Michael F. Kallon New York City, September 20, 1997
SIERRA LEONEAN WRITERS SERIES You can buy this book by going to: http://www.sl-writers-series.org/index.php/component/jshopping/category/view/9?Itemid=0
Another SLWS book now on amazon.com
THE GHOSTS OF NGAINGAH
By
Michael Fayia Kallon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9988139837/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_1?qid=1429479091&sr=8-1-fkmr0&pi=SL75&keywords=ghosts+of+ghaingah+michael+kallon
'The Ghosts of Ngaingah' is about a village located in the Kissi-Kama Chiefdom in the northeastern region of the Republic of Sierra Leone on Africa's west coast, and a ritual curse that befell it. The Kissi have lived in that village since ancient times. Upon their refusal to follow ancient traditional practices at the local oracle near the Kuyoh Mountain, and at a shrine on the bank of Ndopie River, they heard a mysterious dirge one morning, before the sun reached its zenith. The villagers saw a crowd of ghosts with bundles on their heads, and accompanied by lots of animals. They were repeatedly chanting a mysterious dirge. The ghosts entered crevices in the Kuyoh Mountain and disappeared. The scratches they left on the hard rocks are still visible. This narrative, which contains humor, mischief and magic demonstrates how powerfully tradition and custom influenced the lives of the people of one ethnic group -- the Kissi.
THE GHOSTS OF NGAINGAH is a story full of superstition, yet so credible. When a people neglect that which constitutes their collective consciousness and which helps them grow and prosper as a community, the negative effects are bound to hit them hard.Michelle Azara Osman - Barrister at Law, Accra, Ghana |
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Review: THE TRAFFIC SUPERVISOR AT JFK By Michael Fayia Kallon New York City/ USA March 17, 2010
Published by Wasteland Press /USA
Today, when security is not just an empty buzzword, those who work in the security field are often overlooked as important contributors to the safety and security of those they are hired to protect. In Michael Fayia Kallon�s The Traffic Supervisor At JFK, he sheds considerable light on the plight of security officers, in particular, at JFK, the country�s largest international airport. Not only are these officers underpaid, they are also subjected on a regular basis to the taunts and angry outbursts of a prejudiced, belligerent supervisor who denies them breaks for meals and restroom use.
There is, to be sure, some humor involved in some of the incidents, and the repetition of daily activities gives the reader a realistic look at the problems of not only hiring supervisors with cognitive skills but also paying attention to officers who have serious complaints about their supervisors. In either case, the welfare, safety, and security of everyone in their sphere of influence are jeopardized.
Susan Giffin Editor, Dearborn, Michigan/ USA March, 5, 2010 |
| | THE KISSI STORYTELLER Folk Tales From Sierra Leone
Michael Fayia Kallon
October 25, 2010 Publisher: www.wastelandpress.net
Telephone: 1-502-437-0860 International: 00-1-502-437-0860 Fax: 1-888-772-9678 PREFACE |
| The Kissi are natives found in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and French-Guinea on the west coast of Africa. The stories narrated in this book do not just embellish the truth about the virtues of the culture of these unique, mysterious, and enigmatic natives; they portray an ebullient mythology of the Kissi in Sierra Leone.
Stories are narrated to inform the readers about the richness in cultures. In this book of Kissi stories, we hope to take readers to the doorsteps of daring, kind, audacious, and peaceful natives living in these chiefdoms: Kissi Teng, Kissi Kama, and Kissi Tongi in Sierra Leone and along the banks of the Makona River. |
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| To My Daughter Zanaria Kumba Kallon 1. Kumba, Dad loves you so dearly Your pretty and innocent eyes That mark the book's face Are indeed gems in Dad's eyes 2. Cunningly you stood to gaze With so much prettiness at heart Smiling at Dad's love in ambiance And the Earth adores with loving joy 3. With a smile at nature's pride And at the beauties of earthly love For Dad has pushed you so far, my bunny For your beautiful face is truly for fame 4. Daddy loves you, bunny Not with a phony But with a banter And with an anther 5. Oh! Kumba, my sweet bunny You are a gem of beauty That Dad loves to cuddle -------------------------
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