Last year Dennis and Ena Fowler published their new book Echoes of Africa. It is based primarly on weekly letters which Dennis wrote to his mother from 1958 to 1966 when Dennis and his wife worked as missionaries in what was Northern Rhodesia and later became Zambia, in particular mostly in Kasenga, Namwala District. The letters and the book are a record of a long-lost way of life the Fowler family experienced among the Ila people of Southern Zambia. It includes anecdotes, characters and observations of everyday life, and presents a fascinating picture of two cultures – European and African – in rural Africa at the end of the coloneal era. Fluent Ila speakers, Dennis and Ena Fowler are the authors of a number of books and papers on the Ila language, culture and folklore.
In 2015 Queen Elisabeth awarded him the MBE medal, in recognition of the work he did in preserving the Ila cultural heritage.
Publications:
(2000) A Dictionary of Ila Usage, 1860 – 1960 Monographs from the International African Institute, 5 [Hamburg: Lit-Verlag]
(2000) Some old Ila songs and verses. In Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 13, Number 2, pp. 227 – 237
(2002) The Ila Speaking. Monographs from the International African Institute, 7 [Hamburg: Lit-Verlag]
(2002) Traditional Ila Plant Remedies from Zambia. In Kirkia vol.18 pp.35 – 48
(2003) What the Ila believed about God: Traditional Religion and the Gospel. In International Bulletin of Missionary Research, vol. 27, no.2, pp. 64 – 71
(2007) Zambian Plants: Their vernacular names and uses [Kew Publishing]
(2008) [in collaboration with Dr. Olwen Grace] Adenia cissampeloides, Brucea antidysenterica, Euphorbia grantii, Stephania abyssinica. In Plant Resources of Tropical Africa, Medicinal Plants 1 [CTA, Wageningen, Netherlands]
(2011) Traditional Zambian Fever Remedies [Kew Publishing]
(2011) Memories of an Octogenarian Porter. In Cumbrian Railways Journal vol 10 No.7, pp. 217-8
(2011) Do ethnobotanical and laboratory data predict clinical safety and efficacy of anti-malarial plants? [As part of a team] In Malaria J. 2011:10 (Suppl.1): S7
(2012) Dichrostachys cinerea, [in collaboration with Dr.G.Lewis]. In Plant Resources of Tropical Africa, Medicinal Plants 2 [CTA, Wageningen, Netherlands]
