Summoned from the Margin
Homecoming of an African
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Published: 2012
FritzSearch.com earns a commission on purchases made through Bookshop.org links.
Publisher's Description
Summoned from the Margin tells the story of Lamin Sanneh's fascinating journey from his upbringing in an impoverished village in West Africa to education in the United States and Europe to a distinguished career teaching at the Universities of Yale, Harvard, Aberdeen, and Ghana. He grew up in a polygamous household in The Gambia and attended a government-run Muslim boarding school. A chance encounter with Helen Keller's autobiography taught him that education and faith are the key to overcoming physical and personal hardship and inspired his journey. Burning theological questions about God's nature and human suffering eventually led Sanneh to convert from Islam to Christianity and to pursue a career in academia. Here he recounts the unusually varied life experiences that have made him who he is today. Watch the trailer:
Endorsements (7)
“At once brave, lyrical, and profoundly moving, this book traces the life of one of the world's great scholars. Lamin Sanneh illuminates the contours of an African childhood, the relationship between Islam and Christianity, and the ongoing challenges of bridging racial and cultural differences. This powerful memoir is both a timely commentary on issues in world Christianity and a timeless masterpiece of the human spirit.”
“A riveting modern-day Pilgrim's Progress by a leading world Christian intellectual — eloquent but not verbose, profound but not obscure, lucid but not clichéd. Rare is the memoir that engages its reader from beginning to end. Lamin Sanneh's is one of those.”
“Sanneh's personal journey from childhood roots in the Gambia is told with refreshing delight in a wonderfully kaleidoscopic account of people and places along the way. . . . As a multilayered personal testimony from the place where civilizations meet, this is truly a captivating read.”
“I've always found Lamin Sanneh one of the very best analysts of contemporary Christianity worldwide, but my admiration for him grows still more when I read this disarmingly honest and instructive autobiography. Read it if you want to learn not just about Lamin Sanneh himself, or world Christianity, but about West Africa, Islamic-Christian relations, the process of religious conversion, and a host of other matters. Or just enjoy a really well-written autobiography!”
“For most of the four decades I have known Lamin Sanneh, I have urged him to write a memoir of his personal pilgrimage. At last my prayer has been answered! I treasure this marvelous addition to the history of Christian and African autobiography that reaches back to Saint Augustine.”
“Lamin Sanneh's autobiography is moving, humble, and very thought-provoking. A convert to Christianity from Islam and now a leading missiologist at Yale, Sanneh speaks simply from a rich and sensitive Christian faith. . . . He has the rare quality of a top academic as well as a humane and spiritually discerning communicator.”
“This moving narrative vividly portrays the many stages of Lamin Sanneh's religious journey, connecting his personal experiences on four continents with major cultural shifts in the last fifty years. . . . Sanneh offers a sobering critique of Western Protestantism and explains his confidence in the progress of African Christianity, expressed in the mother tongue. His painful memories of multiple rejections should sharpen our reflection on our Christian past and present.”
See something wrong on this page? Report a problem