Grace

This LongNights' season prompted a rare, leisurely lunch with a wise friend. A lawyer and president of the Southern Education Foundation, the gift she brought was the distinction between justice and revenge. Mine was stories of Aminatta Forna, author of Ancestor Stones.

Ms. Forna's father, Mohammed Forna, was executed in 1975 by Sierra Leone's government. He had been its Minister of Finance, opposed corruption and one-party rule, and fearlessly died for his principles. Aminatta's Scottish mother spirited the three Forna children out of the country, back to London, where they grew up. Ms. Forna tells her father's story in her remarkable book, The Devil that Danced on the Water.

Anger and revenge might be a natural response. Instead, Aminatta Forna returns regularly to Sierra Leone, where she and her Temne relatives have created a school in her grandfather's village.

Five teachers and more than 200 children have now supplanted the total illiteracy which characterized the village before Ms. Forna reconnected with her African family. In addition to celebrating the school's first graduation, 16 children have now taken the entrance exam for secondary school and passed with the highest grades in the area. She has also brought solar power to the village which had been hundreds of miles from the nearest electricity.

What was Ms. Forna doing while her relatives were creating their future? Immortalizing the stories of Sierra Leone's women in Ancestor Stones, while helping her ancestral village overcome the legacies of colonialism.

So what did I get for dessert for my holiday lunch? A delicious new flavor of "Living well is the best revenge."

You can hear more from Aminatta Forna herself at our "Paula Gordon Show" website.