The Second Round

by Lenrie Peters

256 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2024

About the author

Dr Lenrie Peters graduated with a B Sc. from the TRINITY College of Cambridge in 1956. In 1959, he received a Medical and Surgery diploma from Cambridge. He holds a Master’s degree in Arts. He worked as journalist of African programs with the BBC from 1955 to 1968. He was the president of the Historic Commission of Monuments of the Gambia, President of FESTAC comity in 1977 and President of the board of directors of the National library of the Gambia and Gambia College from 1979 to 1987. From 1985 to 1991, he was a member and President of the West African Examination Council (WAEC). He was member of the jury for the Literary prize of the Commonwealth in 1995.
He passed away on 27 May 2009 in Dakar after a brief illness.
Dr Lenrie Peters' poems, Satellites, Katchikali and Selected Poems were published in the African Writers Series along with his only novel The Second Round.

Reviews

[Daniel Polansky]

An understandably popular sub-genre in mid 20th century African literature is 'talented youth returns from education in the West, struggles to re-acclimatize with the culture.' Lenrie Peters is one of about five authors this week who were returned ex-patriots, most of whom specialized in practical matters (medicine, education, engineering) with the intention of being a part of the post-colonial development of Africa and writing being a sideline. Some are more explicitly political but others, like this excellent entry, focus more on the sense of existential and emotional dislocation of re-entry, an inability to combine with the movements of then modern Africa and a heightened sense of the tragedy of the human condition as expressed by their particular milieu. Peters didn't write much else, which is too bad because this shows evidence of real artistic talent.