Meet Me at the Ghana International Book Fair!

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Authors, Book Events, Bookish things, Ghana, Ghana International Book Fair, Publishing, reading

Hello, lovely people lovers of African stories.

If you’re in Accra, Ghana this week, have I got a treat for you! I and a group of Ghanaian authors (we’re calling ourselves 11 Authors (from) Ghana) have a stand at the Ghana International Book Fair, taking place from 30 August – 2 September, 2018 at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC). Time is 9am to 7pm daily. This event will bring together, publishers, authors, book marketers, editors; you name it, from all over the globe. There will be seminars, master classes, book readings etc. Exciting, isn’t it? 🙂

Here are some of the great books you can get:

As you can see, we’re catering to a whole array of reading taste buds. Bring your whole family and meet new authors! 🙂 Sure, it will be fun! 🙂

Bastet’s Shadorma Photo Prompt #14: Ananse and the Gum-Man

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by the fireside, culture, Ghanaian folklore, Kweku Ananse

Done for Mindmiserymenagerie, BastetsShardorma photo prompt. We are to imagine a time, when poetry games (in Japan) and story telling were the main pastime in the evenings. No television, radio or computer just people sitting ’round the fireplace. In Africa, storytelling is part and parcel of us. Even our dance gestures and moves tell stories of their own. In Ghanaian folklore, Ananse, (A-nan-se) or the Spider is credited with much cunning and guile and he becomes the subject of many stories woven and told around the fireside in the evenings, often with a morale.

(3-5-3-3-7-5)

warming hands

over Nana’s flames

that sizzles

fat corn cobs

crickets, and owls make music

 to Ananse’s wish

(1-2-3-4-1)

defying

family, death

Ananse cheats all

we giggle with excitement

trepidation

(3-5-3-3-7-5)

cobs roasted

we chew and exhale

Nana’s jaws

 in tandem

we sigh at Ananse’s fate

at hands of gum-man

Copyright © Celestine Nudanu 

(29/06/14)

I appreciate your patience with me as I catch up on your blogs. Thanks a million! Shalom.

Review: My First Coup D’ Etat By John Dramani Mahama

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Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, My First Coup D'Etat

Title:         My First Coup D’ Etat (Memories from the Lost Decades of Africa)
Author:     John Dramani Mahama
Binding:    Paperback
Genre:      Non-Fiction
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, UK
Pages:      318
Publication Date:  2012

Reason for reading: For my African reads and from TBR. Had wanted to review this for the Ghanaian Literature Week but could not meet the deadline.

It is not everyday that the President of a country writes a book and a non-fiction at that while in power. Granted that when this book was written John Dramani Mahama, the author, was then the Vice-President of Ghana, it is still a novelty. But I would hesitate to conclude that therein lies the appeal. The appeal lies in the contents and  freshness of his style.

John Mahama was about seven years old in 1966 when Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana was overthrown in a coup. His father who was then a Minister in the government was imprisoned for over a year. And life for the privileged Mahama changed in ways that never suggested that he would one day lead Ghana.

In poignantly engaging, warm and seamless narrative style, My First Coup d’Etat, a collection of personal reminiscences, takes the reader through a journey from the first coup d’etat, successive governments and coups, woven expertly with his childhood and coming of age, funny exploits in the secondary school, lively escapades with his numerous siblings, University days in Ghana, stint in Nigeria finding himself and later a postgraduate programme in Russia.

My First Coup D’Etat works on many levels; as history, cultural and political analysis. It also offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africa’s success story. In his review, the late Chinua Achebe says:

“With crisp, yet sweeping prose, John Mahama’s memoir, My first Coup D’Etat, provides insights into Ghana’s and by extension, Africa’s struggle to weather its historical burden and engage with a world much removed from her dilemma. Without sentimentality or condescension, he exposes homegrown African pathologies and helps us understand several contradictions of our post-colonial condition. His is a much welcome work of immense relevance to African studies and deserves serious critical attention.”

And yet for me, the relevance in the context above is seen in the author’s intellectual ability to separate partisan politics from the pages of the book. Having been born around the first coup, I lived through the periods and events described, though I was too young to remember a few. So the events described refreshed my memory in more ways than one. Reading My First Coup D’Etat has also made me to gain a better understanding of the man John Mahama and not the politician. (is that possible?)

What I gather though is that in his narrative, it seems as if the author is at pains to downplay the relevance of his privileged background to whom he is today. That his father E. A. Mahama had a huge influence in his life is without doubt. Did that influence unconsciously lead to his position today? I look forward to reading his second book!

My First Coup D’Etat is highly recommended for those who like non-fiction and interested in knowing about Ghana.

About the author: John Dramani Mahama is a writer, historian, journalist, communication expert, former Member of Parliament, Minister of Communications and currently the sixth President of the Republic of Ghana.

Review: Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories by Ama Ata Aidoo

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Ama Ata Aidoo, Ghanaian Literature Week, Kinna, Short Story

Title:         Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories
Author:     Ama Ata Aidoo
Binding:    Paperback
Genre:      Fiction
Publisher: Ayebia Clarke Publishers Ltd, UK
Pages:      170
Publication Date:  2012

Reason for reading: For the Ghanaian Literature Week hosted by Kinna

A collection of twelve fine short stories (the third) written by the celebrated Ghanaian author, Ama Ata Aidoo, Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories is about every day concerns relating to women, age, love, marriage, class, war and poverty, cultural issues and identity.

Ms Aidoo approaches these concerns in a candid manner, with a fresh and unique perspective, delving deep into the psyche of the characters in a bid to make the reader understand where they are coming from and where they are going, especially where she questions old traditions and  long-held views in Ghana. I see this also as an attempt to make the reader identify and perhaps sympathize with the characters. Most of the characters are strong-willed and assertive, all the more so to buttress the poignancy of these concerns and consequences.

The author makes good use of humour extensively in her narration. In her own delicate but powerful style she engages the reader through her own brand of diction, a spicy mix of precise choice words, phrases and proverbs stringing together to form beautiful narrative with a pure Ghanaian feel. Transliterations abound here and on occasion, certain phrases or sentences cannot be properly translated to create the desired impact unless it is translated directly from the local dialect.

In No Nuts, a good dose of the Fante dialect is sprinkled in the narrative for the desired effect and for good measure.

Both Diplomatic Pounds, the title story and Mixed Messages are a frank look into women’s obsession with weight where Ama Ata Aidoo offers two interesting sides of the coin in a clearly humorous manner.

Issues of race and or skin colour and gender are given prominence in the collection through stories like Outfoxed, Rain and Did you Ever? In the latter the following powerful statement by Koku says it all.

‘Yes, where I come from girls don’t matter. Nobody wants them. Only boys are desired, cherished….‘ p42

Recipe for a Stone Meal is a powerfully poignant  two page story of the effects of war in Africa, told simply and seemingly seamlessly.

Feely Feely is the only story among the collection which gives insight into the lives of a father and son.

I highly recommend Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories to all lovers of the short story genre and African literature for its fresh presentation of how ordinary and everyday issues affect us ‘modern’ women. I most certainly identified with some of the concerns. 🙂

To learn more about the author please visit here

 

Announcing The 3rd Ghanaian Literature Week!

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Ghanaian Literature Week

Ghanaian Literature Week is back this year! My dear friend, Kinna of Kinna Reads  will be hosting the 3rd rendition having started it in 2010, ran it again in 2011.

This year’s reading event is scheduled for Monday, November 11th – Sunday, November 17th. Everyone is invited to participate.  The guidelines for participation remain the same as those in 2011:

• ‘Read one or more works by a Ghanaian author or an author of Ghanaian descent
• Both fiction and non-fiction works are allowed
• All forms and genres of fiction are allowed.  These include novels, novellas, short stories, children’s literature, poetry and drama. Literary fiction, faith-based works, romances, and, mysteries.
• The length or topic does not matter except that it must be connected to Ghana or touch on some aspect of Ghanaian life.
• The material must be published as a physical book, an ebook, in a newspaper, in a journal or published online.
• Those with websites are to please review the works that they read.
• Please link your reviews to the review database, which Kinna will put up on the first day of the event
• Join us for a Twitter chat (the time will be announced later). We will use the hashtag #GhanaLit on twitter.
• And please have fun.  It is the most important rule.

Kinna will host a number of giveaways for our local, African and international readers and participants.  Note: if you are an author or publisher who would like to donate a book to this project, please email her at kinnareads(at)gmail(dot)com.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you would like to guest post on her blog or would like to host an event (online or in Ghana) during the week.

A page with a list of suggested reading and other information related to the week will be put up on her blog Kinna Reads  in the coming week.

I’ve already lined up a book or two for the event. Can’t wait!. I do hope you will join us have fun!!! 🙂

In 2011,  I participated in the Ghanaian Literature Week as a guest on Kinna’s blog with a review of Mistress of the Game by Asabea Ashun. I was then not a blogger.

Today, I give credit to Kinna for introducing me to blogging and starting me off when she came to my office to help me create a blog. 🙂 Without her encouragement and confidence in me, and the invaluable support from dear Nana Awere Damoah, (another writer and blogger) I would not have been here today on blogosphere. 🙂

Review: Not Without Flowers by Amma Darko

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Not Without Flowers

Title:     Not Without Flowers
Author: Amma Darko
Binding: Paperback
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 367
Publication Date: 2007

Publishers: Sub-Saharan Publishers

Reasons for Reading: From my TBR

In attempting to write this review I will be as brief as possible and try not to give spoilers. I have come to realise, reading other reviews that mine tend to be lengthy with lots of spoilers. 🙂 I do talk a lot and cannot stop once I am on familiar turf. Anyway, once I have cleared that out of the way I will plunge right in.

Imagine a world or a garden full of beautiful flowers of all types and shades where you bathe in the evoking beauty and pleasure everyday, cherishing the sensuous smells and aesthetic value to your simple but elegant home, where you make a home for your loving husband and children. Then you wake up one morning and hearing voices urging you with cacophonic urgency to slash all the lovely plants, you obey and whack, hack and slash through the stems, killing all the flowers, letting out blood, yes blood till you are spent, your mind a whirring decline into madness. That is what Amma Darko’s Not Without Flowers seeks to portray in a dramatic and symbolic way. Beauty in marriage suddenly evaporating, dying, a corpse of a marriage where nothing but a carcass of  bitterness, disappointment, madness, suicide and revenge remain as ashes.

Aggie’s marriage to Idan, her childhood sweetheart is all that she hoped it would be, except that it is a childless one. And when Idan ‘accidentally’ meets Randa an attractive and cold university student who seduces him with a passion that only reminds him of his youth and fuels his guilt over his affair and childlessness, a chain of events sets in leading to unearth Aggie’s past life as a student prostitute and the unwitting part she played in the suicide of Randa’s father and madness of her mother. Nemesis comes knocking at Aggie’s door in a whirlwind that sweeps Aggie, her husband and her polygamous parents, as well Randa and her two older siblings and her young lover along in a vortex of pain, betrayal, and the shocking truth of living with HIV/AIDS.

From the beginning of the novel, Amma Darko creates a masterful suspense with her intricate plot and characters. Intriguing, baffling and shady sub plots are all woven together sending me on a seat gripping marathon as I craved for the ultimate picture to unravel. At the end of the novel, I was stunned, unable to come to terms with the grief of Ma, as she watched helplessly as Aggie a. k. a. Flower, destroys the very loving fabric of her marriage, albeit a complacent one. Here Amma Darko spares no effort in portraying a young Aggie on the prowl, confidently sexy in her ability and power to ensnare a middle-aged man, Pa, for monetary gains. Having unmanned him literally and figuratively, she scorns him and bankrupt, he commits suicide.

In dealing with the various themes in Not Without Flower, the author employs poignant dramatic devices which highlights thorny issues such as HIV/AIDS in a polygamous marriage in an urban setting, juxtaposing this with the rural setting of Aggie’s mother whose relationship with her childless rival is close-knit with support coming from both sides. Aggie treats all two mothers equally and never refers to her stepmother as such. The use of flashback adequately sends the reader back and forth revealing and clarifying past events of an otherwise convoluted plot and heightening emotions in a roller-coaster way.

Infidelity is another theme that runs throughout the novel. Almost all the major characters and a few minor ones are unfaithful to their respective partners. Lies and deceits abound as these characters try to make meaning of their current predicaments which they find themselves in as a result of their initial lies. Nothing is as it seems. Closely linked to this is an important power-relation explored in the ‘sugar-daddies’ and ‘chicken-soups’ or ‘good-time girls’ syndrome, something that is on the increase in cosmopolitan cities in the country. The harm that this relation does to wives forms the central topic of the novel. The narration also seems to explicitly explore the harm done by women to other women. Darko seems committed to investigate the problems women encounter in modern Ghana.

Ma’s madness as a result of her husband’s infidelity and suicide is a true reflection on the statistics and causes of mental problems afflicting Ghanaian women in contemporary times. That her children seek un-orthodox treatment for her in a prayer camp is a sad and unfortunate indictment on their desperation as well as prevailing situations in the country.

The author also employs the surreal, making use of superstitions, premonitions that foretell the future, dreams that come to pass, traditional lore and customs; she superbly blends this with the comic prophecies of Prophet Abednego, the not so latest example and manifestations of socio-economic and religious deficiencies in the country, to create an effective mysterious atmosphere in the novel.

I did not like some of the characters though I could understand why they took certain decisions and behaved the way they did. At some point I felt like putting the book away as I could not bear the pain of Ma and could not stand the game played by Randa and her sister Cora.

All in all, Amma Darko’s writing is a force to reckon with. Her use of language is confident, interspersed with much Ghanaian humour, using the Ghanaian English liberally. She knows her people, her setting and her play with different genres, investigative, suspense, mystery and romance works out smoothly and beautifully in the end.

I recommend this novel to all lovers of Ghanaian (African) literature.

About the Author:

Amma Darko is one of the most significant contemporary Ghanaian literary writers.She is the author of four previous novels: Faceless (Sub-Saharan, 2003), The Housemaid (Heinemann, 1999), Beyond the Horizon (Heinemann, 1995) and Not Without Flowers (Sub-Saharan,2007). http://www.africanbookscollective.com

Mistress of the Game by Asabea Ashun

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Asabea Ashun, Canada, Ghanaian Literature Week, Women Writers

 Guest Review: Mistress of the Game by Asabea Ashun

(I was a guest on the Ghanaian Literature Week hosted by Kinna Reads on January 27, 2012, where I did a post on Mistress of the Game by Asabea Ashun. By kind courtesy of Kinna, I’m reproducing the post on my blog.)

About the Author: Asabea Ashun is a Ghanaian professor of Chemistry who lives and teaches in Canada. Mistress of the Game is her first novel. She also has Serwaa Akoto’s Diary, and The Adventures of Kobby Badu-Smith, a science fiction for children.

Mistress of the Game is about marriage of two cultures, African and Western that went wrong in the end because of betrayal of trust . It is also about the politics of new-found oil in Ghana and the greed and dirty dealings that go with it. Mistress of the Game is also about courage, hope and survival in the face of despair and the shattering realisation of living with HIV/AIDS.

The intrigue in the novel is heightened when Sarah, the Ghanaian young woman married to a Canadian, Philip, connive with her pushy and overbearing mother (who incidentally means well) to deceive Philip in the most bizarre and unscrupulous manner ever imagined; juxtaposed with this couple are Jason, Philip’s younger brother and Araba, a young Ghanaian girl who discovers that one of the ways to survive in a dying metropolis that now threatens to come alive through the oil boom and the influx of expatriates, technocrats and crooks alike all wanting to cash in on the ‘liquid gold’, is to make good use of her ‘assets’. Ironically, it is Araba who with her two fatherless children of mixed race, give us hope at the end of the story.

The language is rich with humour, laced with Ghanaian English and Akan akin to Ayikwei Parkes’ Tail of the Blue Bird. The main settings for the plot are Takoradi, in Ghana, and Canada. The writer expounds well researched history and facts that gives credence to her academic background. The descriptions of scenes and planes are so vivid that the reader keeps ohing and ahing in recognition of familiar sights and landmarks. The Ghanaian characters are real, with everyday expressions and attitudes that spell out the ingredients that make the Ghanaian that happy-go-lucky human being, easily able to shrug off problems with that matter of fact approach to life, albeit full of humour.

Mistress of the Game is available at Amazon. For those in Ghana, it can be purchased at Silverbird. Do get one and add to it your reading shelf/list.