Yulisa Pat Amadu Maddy facts for kids

Yulisa Amadu Pat Maddy (born December 27, 1936 – died March 16, 2014) was a talented writer, poet, actor, dancer, director, and playwright from Sierra Leone. People who knew him often called him Pat Maddy or simply "Prof." He had a huge impact on theatre in countries like Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Zambia.

Biography

Early Life and Education

Pat Maddy was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He grew up there and went to St. Edward's Secondary School. In 1958, when he was 22, he traveled to France and then to Britain.

Maddy trained at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in the UK. He began working in radio in Britain and Denmark. He wrote and produced many radio plays.

Career in Theatre and Writing

Maddy became the Director of Drama at the Keskidee Centre in London. He also led a theatre group called the Pan African Players. In 1966, this group represented the United Kingdom at the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. They performed a play called Wind versus Polygamy.

Maddy's early plays were first broadcast on the BBC African Service. They were later published together in a book called Obasai and Other Plays in 1968. In the mid-1960s, he lived in Denmark. There, a book of his poems, Ny afrikansk prosa, was published in 1969.

Return to Africa and Later Work

In 1968, Maddy returned to Sierra Leone. He became the Head of Drama on Radio Sierra Leone. He also helped start a theatre company called Gbakanda Afrikan Tiata in Freetown in 1969.

Later, he worked in Zambia. He directed the national dance group and trained them for the Montreal World's Fair in 1970. He also taught drama in Nigeria at the University of Ibadan and the University of Ilorin. He taught in the United States as well.

His first novel, No Past, No Present, No Future, was published in 1973. It was very popular. The book explored the lives of three friends growing up in West Africa during colonial times. It also showed their journeys to Europe. Maddy's writing was often direct and honest. His work was broadcast by the BBC and published around the world.

Because of his strong views on social and political problems in Africa, he was put in prison in Sierra Leone. After he was released, he had to leave the country. He lived as a political exile for some time.

In 2007, Maddy came back to Sierra Leone. He taught at the Milton Margai College of Education in Freetown. He continued his research into Sierra Leone's culture. He wanted to inspire new artists and performers. He also continued to give a "voice to the voiceless" through his Gbakanda Foundation. After a long illness, he passed away in March 2014, at the age of 78, in Freetown.

Awards and Honours

Maddy received several awards for his work. In 1973, he won a Sierra Leone National Arts Festival Award. He also received a Gulbenkian Grant in 1978. In 1979, he won an Edinburgh Festival Award.

He was also honored in a special stained-glass window in the Pride Library in Canada. He was one of 135 writers recognized for their amazing contributions to literature. Other famous writers included William Shakespeare and James Baldwin.

Works

• Alla Gbah [The Big Man], 1967
• Yon Kon [Clever Thief], 1968. Reprinted in Cosmo Pieterse (ed.), Ten One-Act Plays, Heinemann, 1968. African Writers Series 34.
• Obasai [Over Yonder], 1971. Reprinted in Obasai and Other Plays, Heinemann, 1968. African Writers Series 89.
• Ghana Bendu [Tough Guy], 1971
• Life Everlasting, 1972. Reprinted in Cosmo Pieterse (ed.), Short African Plays, Heinemann, 1972. African Writers Series 78.
• No Past, No Present, No Future (novel), London: Heinemann Educational, 1973. African Writers Series 137.
• If Wishes Were Horses (radio play), 1973
• Big Breeze Blow, produced Freetown, 1974
• Take Tem Draw Di Rope, Freetown, 1975
• Naw We Yone Dehn See, 1975
• Put for Me, produced Freetown, 1975
• Big Berrin (Big Burying), Freetown, 1976
• Saturday Night Out (television play), 1980
• A Journey Into Christmas, 1980
• Drums, Voices and Words, 1985
• (with Donnarae MacCann) African Images in Juvenile Literature: Commentaries on Neocolonialist Fiction, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1996
• (with Donnarae MacCann) Neo-imperialism in Children's Literature about Africa: A Study of Contemporary Fiction, New York: Routledge, 2009.