Our founder, Vamba Sherif, established this foundation to honour the good work of his brothers Vamuyah Sherif and Vamadu Sherif. Vamuyah Sherif, who studied abroad, returned to Liberia to help his people. One of the beneficiaries of this help was his younger brother,  Vamba Sherif, our founder, who was offered a scholarship to study in Kuwait, an act that enabled him to realise his dream of becoming a scholar and writer. Vamadu Sherif extended that love and brotherhood by stepping into the shoes of Vamuyah Sherif and being the parent and guardian of Vamba Sherif. The deep humanity of these two people inspired this foundation. The aim is to keep their legacy alive by carrying on their good work and their love of scholarship and service to humanity.

Vamba Sherif was born in Kolahun, Liberia. He’s a novelist, essayist, speaker, book and film critic. He’s a lecturer in African Literature at Leiden University and sits on the board of many organizations, such as The Erasmus Foundation, The Fixdit Foundation, Restore Hope Liberia, among others. His novels and stories have been published in multiple languages, including Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, and the Indian Malayalam. He’s also published essays, short stories, film and book reviews, columns and opinion pieces in The New York Times, the German Kulturaustausch, African Writing, Kalahari Review, Trouw, Volkskrant, NRC and ZAM-Magazine, among many others. With Ebissé Rouw, he compiled Black: Afro-European literature in the Netherlands and Belgium, a unique anthology of Afro-European experience in the Low Countries. His recent works includes the memoir Unprecentend Love (2021), the anthology The Comet (2022) which was compiled with Martin Lindeboom, and the historical novel The Emperor’s Son(2023). This novel chronicles the life and times of Emperor Samori Touré, the great African resistant leader to the French and English colonial forces.

Vamba Sherif is a sought-after guest at literary festivals around the world, from Europe to Africa, Asia and America. About his work, the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung wrote: ‘Vamba Sherif creates vortexes of Shakespearean intensity.’