A Giant Tree has Fallen: Tributes to Ali Al-Amin Mazui, edited by Seifudein Adem

This book memorialising the life and work of Ali Al’amin Mazrui comprises more than 130 tributes written by people ranging from heads of state to journalists. Presented here are those tributes for which copyright permissions were received from among the hundreds that appeared online and print. In preparing this book, it was made very clear that, unlike other books of tributes to great men and women, there would be no segmentation of the sections based on writers’ and speakers’ positions in life. Instead, it was decided that the tributes be presented in alphabetical order based on writers’ and speakers’ last names. The decision hinged on the fact that Mazrui would not have apposed any segmentation of people by class, race, ethnicity and gender etc. Nonetheless, out of great respect for Mazrui’s immediate family members, their tributes are presented first, followed by those from his global family members. Also included at the beginning of the book are three chapters that comprise an introductory essay, a brief biography of Mazrui, and an essay on metaphorical-linguistic analysis of the tributes that follow. The book also has a preface by the co-editors and a forward by Salim Ahmed Salim, the former Prime Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania and Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now known as the Africa Union. Dr. Salim, who served as the Secretary-General of the OAU from 1989 to 2001, was Mazrui’s friend and contemporary. Mazrui once described Salim as “Mr Africa” and the “first real postcolonial Secretary-General of the OAU.