Conradin Perner

Conradin Perner was born in Davos, Switzerland in 1943. He obtained a PhD in comparative literature under Professor Paul de Man at the University of Zurich, and went to teach French literature at the University of Kisangani in Congo in 1970. He joined the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1972 and worked as a delegate in India, Vietnam, and Central Asia. Then returned to Africa in 1974 where he taught French literature at the University of Khartoum in the Sudan. While in Khartoum he visited a little-known tribe in South Sudan called the Anyuak. He was fascinated by these people and the way they lived. Upon returning to the University of Khartoum, he couldn’t stop thinking and researching about them. In 1977 Dr. Perner quit his job, obtained a grant from the Swiss National Fund and headed to Otalo to live with and study the oral literature of the Anyuak.

Five years later he published an Anyuak-English Dictionary, and summarized his research on the life, culture, and history of the tribe in an eight-volume monograph: “The Anyuak: Living on Earth in the Sky,” published by Schwabe-Verlag of Basel, Switzerland. Perner’s latest book is a memoir about his life with the Anyuak, called “Why Did You Come If You Leave Again?” This is what the late King Agada of the Anyuak asked him as Perner was preparing to leave for his native country of Switzerland after living with the Anyuak for five years. The memoir, published by Xlibris, chronicles Perner’s life and adventures among the Anyuak who named him Kwacakworo (the leopard). It is a poetic and a spiritual journey of struggle, understanding, and appreciation of an African people and their culture.

Kwacakworo continued to work in South Sudan with a number of organizations including the ICRC, UNICEF, and UNESCO, and eventually as a senior peace advisor for the Swiss government in South Sudan. He lived with the South Sudanese people through their struggle for peace, justice and dignity, and came to admire and write numerous articles and books about them. During the celebrations of South Sudan’s independence in 2011, Kwacakworo received an honorary citizenship of the new country for his role in the epic rescue of the so called “lost boys” in their perilous journey from the camps in Ethiopia to the war-torn South Sudan at the time.