Syl Cheney-Coker

Syl Cheney-Coker (also spelled Cheyney-Coker), Sierra Leonean poet and novelist (writing in English), b. 28 June 1945, Freetown. He was born to Christian Creole parents in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Having received his early education in Sierra Leone, at the age of twenty-one he came to the United States to pursue postsecondary education at the Universities of Oregon and Wisconsin and also worked for a time as a journalist. He has taught at universities in the Philippines, Nigeria and the U.S. and served as editor and publisher of a fortnightly newspaper, the Vanguard, in Freetown in the late 1980s and early 1990s.