• The Boy from Boadua: One African’s Journey of Hunger and Sacrifice in Pursuit of a Dream

    *Available from 7 February 2023

    Patrick Asare was born and raised by illiterate parents in the remote Ghanaian village of Boadua. His family was so large and impoverished that not even the earnings from crushing hard work could buy enough food to fill their bellies. No one in the village aspired to be educated beyond middle school.

    Until Patrick.

    Numerous obstacles stood in the way of Patrick’s yearning for higher knowledge, including gnawing hunger, lack of sleep, and backbreaking daily chores. During school vacations, he toiled in a jungle farm teeming with poisonous snakes and insects.

    Dedicating every stolen moment to study, Patrick passed the common entrance exam with flying colors. Despite major setbacks, he kept his eye on the prize. He graduated from an elite secondary school and earned his engineering degree in the Soviet Union during the perestroika era. Finding his way to the United States, he taught Russian and math and eventually obtained a superb education from top American universities.

    Patrick’s travels and adventures taught him that, regardless of his hardscrabble childhood, he was a lucky man. He was raised by loving and supportive parents and lived in a society where race was not an issue. Teaching in inner-city high schools alerted him to the particular challenges faced by America’s urban Black youth.

    Patrick’s amazing story offers insights, hope, and inspiration to others who face astronomical odds.

  • Accra Aca Blɛoo: The History of the Accra Academy from James Town to Bubiashie (Hardcover)

    Accra Aca Bleoo – the first comprehensive history book on the Accra Academy – captures nine decades of the school’s history, including the most epic events and pivotal moments. It takes the reader through the life journeys of the founders and those who believed in their dream to educate the underprivileged youth of the Gold Coast. It also recounts the aspirations and achievements of successive administrations of the school and how they overcame the challenges of their time and influenced the character of their students.

    The book brings to light several unknown facts about the Accra Academy and examines the educational policies that have influenced its development and growth.

    It is not only informative and educative but also entertaining, as it is interspersed with interesting stories and several pictures that will undoubtedly take the minds of alumni back to the good old days and give other readers a perspective into how life in the school has evolved.

    This book is the outcome of many hours of personal interviews and research, and is intended for anyone interested in the history of education in Ghana and what has made the Accra Academy what it is today.

  • Art and the Power of Goodness: A Collection of John Agyekum Kufuor (Hardcover)

    **Available from 16 June 2021

    FOREWORD BY GORDON BROWN, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

    There is a strong correlation between art and power and in this book, Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a cultural and literary historian, looks at it from the art collection of the former President of Ghana – John Agyekum Kufuor.

    From a matrilineal household in Kumasi that is connected to the visual and palace art in the ancient imperial Kingdom of Ashanti, Kufuor travelled the world from Oxford into the pantheon of great personages and power. Along the way, whether in villages in Ethiopia or among the Maasai in Kenya, across the Maghreb into Morocco, infatuation with the Persia classical period, Ottoman or Asia Minor’s remains of modern day Turkey, northern Lebanon and parts of Greater Asia, some of these acquisitions came by way of gifts and purchases.

    They reflect family life and belief, ancient trade relations and routes as well as patterns of contemporary geo-politics. It could be through Benin bronze sculpture with facial stratifications or of metal smelted Malian Islamic crusaders on horseback or a herdsman from a Sahel water well.

    These works, seventy of which form the basis of this book with few external ones, include resistance art in the fashion of the ‘empire fights back’ against British West African colonial conflict engagements and resultant Independence.

  • Red Oak Heroes Series: The Big Six

    Age Range: 10 – 14 years
    When Mintaa and Oforiwaa approach Grandpa Kwame under the mango tree and ask him to tell them about the Big Six, the old man turns off his radio and takes them through events following World War II till the night when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah said “At long last, the battle has ended! And, thus, Ghana, our beloved country is free forever.”
    Grandpa Kwame answers all their questions about the identity of the men who are famously known as The Big Six. He also tells them about the contribution each member of The Big Six made towards the fight for independence. Do you know that some of the men died in prison? Mintaa and Oforiwaa now understand why the pictures of these men are on most of Ghana’s currency notes.

  • Crossing the Bar: The Story of Daniel Opong Amoafo (DO)

    This book chronicles the life of Daniel Opong Amoafo or DO, as he is referred to by friends and shares in some intriguing details from his early life to adulthood. There are lessons to be gleaned from what he has seen and experienced. He counsels young people to strive to work hard. He cautions against procrastination and advises that everyone should put their God-given talents to good use while it is day. Whatever happens, never give up.

    “Writing with the skill of an accomplished author of eight previous books, Kofi Otutu Adu Labi’s ninth book delightfully chronicles the life history of 90 year old D.O. Amoafo in this easy to read book. The author’s description of the ups and downs of DO’s life showing his rise from a potential illiterate farmer which his father wanted him to be, to a famous academic, emphasises the importance of perseverance, determination and above all trusting in God in all we do. I highly recommend this book to all.” – Brig. General Dan Frimpong (Rtd), Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association (APSTA) Nairobi, Kenya; Council Chairman, Family Health University College, Teshie, Accra, Ghana

  • The African Predicament: Collected Essays

    This collection of Kofi Awoonor’s writings comprises essays written over a period of three decades, and includes several previously unpublished pieces. According to the author himself: ‘[they] reflect a life-time of engagement in literature and politics, my two passions…’

    Kofi Awoonor addresses a diverse range of subjects from an African perspective: the slave trade, post-independence history, globalisation, and the fate of the African continent given the twin scourges of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Literary criticism considers the legacy of W.E.B DuBois, and in a contemporary context, Kofi Anyidoho’s poetry. Further essays are reflections composed during the author’s long sojourns in the US: on Negro, Afro-American, black, African-American and African and identities. Further essays cover historical and political topics, such as the overthrow of Nkrumah, and the UN in relation to Africa in the post-Cold War period.

  • 5 Ghanaian Presidents and China: Patterns, Pitfalls, and Possibilities

    In Five Ghanaian Presidents and China, Lloyd Amoah tackles China’s meteoric rise to global prominence and what this means for African countries including Ghana. Focusing on Ghana’s relations with China over the last sixty years, the work discusses and interrogates how generations of Ghana’s leaders, from Kwame Nkrumah to Akufo-Addo, have approached the China question since the 1950s.Combining archival data, policy information, interviews and conversations with former Ghanaian presidents, scholars and high state officials, with the sounds and sights from his long years of travel through China and intimate observation of Ghanaian policy formation processes, Amoah, finds that ultimately Ghana’s engagement with China is a matter of strategy. In this work the case is made that descriptions of China’s engagement with Africa as “neo-colonial” are both alarmist and simplistic. Five Ghanaian Presidents offers a far more nuanced account and shines some light on how African and other countries in the Global South can exploit China’s tectonic reshaping of global trade, technology, diplomacy, finance, politics, business and economics.

  • Ahafo & Bono Regions In Historical Perspective

    In the centre of Ghana once straddled the Brong-Ahafo Region. It was noted for its beautiful geographical features as well as its rich natural and human resources. The maxim, unity in diversity, a cherished Ghanaian quintessential trait, was exemplified in the region by the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of multiple ethnic groups. On the eve of its Diamond Jubilee, the Region was split into three: Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions to promote the speedy development of the area.

    This book gives a historical overview of the erstwhile region with respect to culture, its achievements and legacy. It also showcases the endowments of the new regions carved out of it. The contents are rich in information, data and photographs of historic people and events which historians, politicians, scholars, tourists, and people interested in issues concerning indigenous African societies and the general reader, will find to be invaluable.

    “This book provides a succinct glimpse into the erstwhile Brong-Ahafo Region in terms of history, achievements and legacy and also showcases the resources of the three new regions created out of Brong-Ahafo. Through the pages of this book, we can always remember our past, our common history and ancestry, and thereby remain united although physically we will be in separate regions.” – From the Foreword

  • The Mind of Africa

    The Mind of Africa, written while the author was A Fellow of  All Souls College, Oxford, was a fruit of that enlarged perspective. After several years, he visited Ghana in 1962. There Kwame Nkrumah, then President of Ghana, successfully persuaded him to return to teach at the University of Ghana, Legon and he subsequently resigned from All Souls. In 1968, he went to the United States as a visiting professor. This was followed by invitations to teach at various academic institutions there, including Berkeley and Stanford. He subsequently settled in California, where he continued to teach and research philosophy in the University of California at Santa Cruz until his retirement.

    The Mind of Africa appeared at a time when a number of African countries were obtaining, or fighting for, their political freedom from their colonial rulers; and becoming independent nations expecting to build new societies in accordance with their own visions and conceptions, though not necessarily jettisoning all the features of their colonial heritage. Building new societies requires appropriate ideologies and philosophies fashioned within the crucible of their cultural and historical experiences. Thus, the relation between ideology and society is taken up at the very outset of the book… The Mind of Africa is important for Africa’s future and identity.

  • Who Owns the Land and Who Rules the Land?

    Ghana is undergoing her fourth experiment in Constitutional Rule − the 4th Republic. She was the first Black African country south of the Sahara to gain her political independence in 1957 but economic independence has eluded her till now. Her development is at a snail-pace at best.

    According to the author, there are certain fundamental bottlenecks in the country’s governance system which make it difficult for her to realize her economic potential. The author compares Ghana’s governance system to Singapore which gained political independence around the same time as Ghana but has successfully transformed from Third World to First World economic status in 30 years and asks why the difference. The author calls for a national debate on the country’s governance system that will lead to a total review of the 1992 Constitution. The following are some of the key issues he calls the nation’s attention to:

     

    • A Feudal Land Tenure System whereby more than 90% of the land mass of Ghana is vested in the Chieftaincy institution as Stool Lands and the remaining 10% vested in the President on behalf of the people of Ghana as Public Lands. A system which greatly impedes development and benefits only a privileged few and yet there are no Land Reforms
    • The Legacy of the Colonial Indirect Rule leading to a “bifurcated state” in which traditional authority runs parallel to civilian political authority
    • An Ineffective Decentralization System which excludes the traditional leaders and refuses to allow the people to elect their own District Chief Executives whom they can hold accountable
    • An Adversarial Political System in which the two main political parties have indulged in violence since independence and thus refuse to reach consensus for national development
    • The Short Tenure of the Executive and Legislature which does not promote long term planning and execution for meaningful development
    • An expensive electoral system which engenders corruption and prevents well-meaning and qualified candidates from offering themselves for governance
    • The Lack of a National Agenda for development and dependence on party manifestoes thus ignoring the Directive Principles of State Policy. Development is thus not progressive but disjointed and depends on which party is in power
    • A Council of State which is merely advisory and has no power to serve as a check on the Executive
    • A National Mindset of Dependency Syndrome and Entitlement Mentality which has resulted in lack of effective mobilization of the populace by the political and traditional leadership. A national psyche that does not promote self-reliance and the can-do spirit
    • A Governance System which tries to copy Westminster and American systems instead of a home-grown system which suits our situation and promotes development
    • An Educational System that fails to build problem-solving abilities and patriotism into the youth and fails to make them proud of being Africans
    • A Very Strong Religious Atmosphere which feeds on superstition and does not enable the teeming members to transform their mindset and focus on teachings which promote hard work, wealth creation and prosperity
  • The Children of House No. D13 South Suntresu Kumasi: An Ahwoi & Adu-Gyamfi Siblings’ Collective Biography

    *Available from 15 June 2022

    To describe The Children of House No. D13, South Suntresu, Kumasi, as an intriguing project is an understatement. A collective biography of eight siblings was always going to be a daunting challenge, even if each person told their own story and got it together in one volume. To do it in a coordinated combination of first and third person “voices” would appear to be a bit implausible. To actually achieve the purpose and turn it from a project into an enthralling reading experience deserves all the plaudits this book is likely to gather.

    This book is a collection of life stories of the eight children of Madam Maye Charlotte Hudson, also known as Esi Tutuwa but known to some people as Esi Nkwagye and to the people of South Suntresu, Kumasi as Mrs. Ahwoi. The ‘Ahwois” principally is the collective name of three brothers – Ato, Kwesi and Kwamena – who have played prominent roles in Ghana’s recent history, but the siblings also include five girls, Ama, Adoma, Efua, Naana and Sister Aggie, who also played their part in this thrilling story in their own unique ways.

    For such a collective recall of personal histories to work, a principal requirement is a willingness of all the parties involved to treat the project seriously; of equal importance is the need to treat everyone’s personal history as important, which is what this book has succeeded in doing. It would be right to describe it as an exercise in literary democracy!

    It is not every book project that produces a good book, but this book has done so because at the heart of the project is a good story. And at the heart of that good story is human progress against the odds capsuled in the life of these eight individuals.

    These are the dramatis personae in order of appearance – from the womb – Ato Ahwoi, Kwesi Ahwoi, Mrs. Ama Twum, Kwamena Ahwoi, Mrs. Ama Adoma Bartels-Kodwo, Mrs. Efua Bram-Larbi, Theodora Naana Adu Gyamfi and Mrs. Agnes Appiagyei-Dankah. Theodora Naana Adu-Gyamfi passed away at the age of 28 and so her role ends early except in passing references. However, it is worth recalling that before she died, and in an act that exemplifies the major theme of this book, Naana secretely transferred all the money in her own bank account into that of her six year old niece, Abena Tutuwa Ahwoi, the daughter of her brother, Kwamena.

    The structure of the narrative, which makes it possible to flow, is simply to follow the fortunes of these siblings sequentially in turn through the main phases of their development. The person whose presence permeates the story is the matriarch – Mrs. Ahwoi, nee Maye Charlotte Hudson.

    The book achieves the purpose of showing the “remarkable togetherness and the mutual support system that enabled the children of House No. D13, South Suntresu, Kumasi, to overcome the many hurdles along their individual paths in life as being due to their mother, Madam Maye Charlotte Hudson (Mrs. Ahwoi). Indeed, the matriarch herself is effectively the ninth subject of the biography of the eight children” as Honourable Kwame Preprah states in the Foreword.

    Nana Kwasi Gyan Apenteng

    Consultant in Communication, Media and Culture

    Former Chairman, National Media Commission (NMC)

    Former President, Ghana Association of Writers (GAW)

  • Thank You Lord!: He Inhabits our Praise

    01

    Thank you Lord! To declare this on a sun-dappled meadow is within the ability of the feeblest of persons. But what of when turbulent currents rush across this pleasant landscape, bringing darkness and fear? Is God still good?

    Struck with a diagnosis of life-threatening organ disease, Adeline, found herself in whirlpools of pain, fear and perplexity. Clutching the wheel of her vessel, struggling to find direction and stay afloat in uncharted territory, the writer finds she has little control over events.

    At the end of this memoir, the reader will share the writer’s joy of discovery, her gratitude and love of the redeemed for the Redeemer, her trust of the sailor,  that her Captain will bring her safely through the torrents to the harbour of His love. The reader too, will surely declare in praise -Yes, Thank you Lord!

    This memoir has a place on every shelf and is of great value for everyone who seeks to find meaning in the ups and downs of life.

    Elizabeth-Irene Baitie Award Winning Author

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