The novel is intended as a break with the tradition of the African novel and its dominant writers, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Chinua Achebe. To achieve this independence, it draws both on the peculiar histories of the post-slavery nations of northwest Africa and on literatures from outside of the continent. Cheney-Coker's interest in Gabriel García Márquez, in particular, has led some critics to consider the novel to belong to the genre of magical realism—the title character demonstrates mysterious powers similar to those of some of García Márquez's characters—though others have questioned that assumption. The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa Region) in 1991. Journalism and exile In the early 1990s, Cheney-Coker returned to Freetown to become editor of a progressive newspaper, the Vanguard. After the military coup of 1997, Cheney-Coker was targeted as a dissident, and barely escaped with his life. In part through the efforts of Wole Soyinka, an exiled Nigerian poet teaching at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Cheney-Coker was invited to be the first writer in the City of Asylum program in Las Vegas, Nevada. He decided to return to a somewhat more stable Sierra Leone in 2003, saying, "After a while, exile is neither justifiable nor tolerable." Documentary In 2016, Cheney-Coker, along with his lifelong friend, the Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare, was the subject of a documentary called The Poets, by director Chivas DeVinck. The film follows Cheney-Coker and Osundare on a road-trip through Sierra Leone and Nigeria as they discuss their friendship and how their life experiences have shaped their art. Books The Road to Jamaica. 1969. Concerto for an Exile: Poems. London: Heinemann, 1973. The Graveyard Also Has Teeth. London: Heinemann, 1980. The Blood in the Desert's Eyes: Poems. London: Heinemann, 1990. The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar. London: Heinemann, 1990. References External links Entry in the Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century https://web.archive.org/web/20070713204220/http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v4i2/porter.htm 1945 births Living people Sierra Leone Creole people Sierra Leonean academics Sierra Leonean novelists Sierra Leonean male poets Sierra Leonean expatriates in the United States University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Oregon alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Academic staff of the University of the Philippines University of Iowa faculty People from Freetown International Writing Program alumni 20th-century Sierra Leonean poets 20th-century male writers 20th-century Sierra Leonean writers Academic staff of the University of Maiduguri