• The Destiny of A Horse Boy

    The Destiny of a Horse Boy, an autobiography, tells Mahama’s story of growing up as a member of the nobility in an Africa of bygone days. Raised by his grandparents, Mahama, an exceptional boy, starts life in the parched and inhospitable landscape of Northern Ghana, a far flung place that is thoughtfully, even lovingly, brought to life through the words of this prolific author.

    His hunger to go to school, to be educated, to rise above his time and place, is so powerful that he runs away from home, travelling in cars that can sometimes go no faster than eight miles an hour, in decrepit trucks, on unreliable ferries and pontoons, past menacing wild animals, ultimately to present himself at a school and beg for admission. Once accepted, he studies through school holidays, excels at nearly every undertaking, and proves himself to be a remarkable young man. At a time when the literary rates were in the single digits, Mahama goes on to become a lawyer and a politician of influence and note, thanks to his integrity and his desire to better his country and the lives of his fellow countrymen in Ghana.

    The Destiny of a Horse Boy delineates the steps from colonial rule to self-rule in Mahama’s beloved Ghana. He tells of violent, warring royal clans, the worst kinds of political jockeying and bloodshed at the hands of government lackeys, politicians and leaders who quite literally risk theirs lives in their quests for power.

    This resourceful and accomplished man has left an indelible mark on Ghana and global politics.

  • A Danish Jew in West Africa: Wulff Joseph Wulff Biography And Letters (1836-1842)

    Wulff’s life history is of considerable interest in itself. In her biographical essay (Part I) Selena Axelrod Winsnes portrays him as a ‘marginal man’: being a Jew in Denmark at the beginning of the 19th century was to some extent an uphill struggle for those who sought public recognition, and Wulff did not escape discrimination in his administrative career at Christiansborg either, although special circumstances allowed him to hold important positions, and yet, only for the short term.

    Paradoxically, on his arrival to the Gold Coast Wulff — as a Jew — was placed in a middle position in the racial hierarchy dominating the mind-set of his superiors in Copenhagen — between Africans and Europeans. In many respects he shared the fate of Euro-Africans, straddling two worlds and being ‘sealed off’ from the top echelons of the European establishments on the Coast.

    This book comprises two parts. The first is a biographical presentation of Wulff Joseph Wulff , a Danish Jew. It is an essay concerning the last six years of his life, spent on the Gold Coast of West Africa, based on letters he wrote to his family in Denmark. Those letters were published in 1917 as Da Guinea var Dansk [When Guinea was Danish], by Carl Behrens, a member of his family in Denmark. The second part of the book is an edited translation of the letters from Danish into English.

  • Ogyakrom: The Missing Pages of June 4th (Fireman Series) – Paperback

    Kwesi Yankah is currently the Minister of State for Tertiary Education in Ghana. Until April 2017, he was Vice Chancellor of Central University, Ghana, and was previously Professor of Linguistics and Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Ghana. Yankah, an inimitable satirist, is a proud product of Winneba Secondary School, University of Ghana and Indiana University, USA, where he did his doctorate. Well known in literary and academic circles, Professor Yankah has been a Public Intellectual since the late 1970s when, at 27, he started an anonymous column in The Catholic Standard newspaper, under the pseudonym Abonsam Fireman. The credit for the column, in a suppressive political environment, was often mistakenly given to the two great luminaries PAV Ansah and Adu Boahen.

    Later in 1986, when Yankah returned from doctoral work at Indiana University, he introduced another weekly column, Woes of the Kwatriot, this time in The Mirror which he sustained for a period of ten years. In 1996, the Ghana Journalists Association honoured him for ‘the longest running column in the history of Ghanaian journalism.’ His writings, both literary and academic, have won for Yankah various awards including the WEB Du Bois Award (GAW), the Zora Hurston Award (GAW), the Ghana Book Development Award (GBDC) and the Gold Book Award given by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.

    The present volume represents landmarks within 22 months of Yankah’s weekly column in The Catholic Standard, from January 1979 to March 1980. It is inspired by topical issues in two military regimes (General F Akuffo’s SMC 2, Rawlings’ June 4th Revolution) and one civilian government (Hilla Limann’s PNP). This compilation altogether allows a veiled peep into the most turbulent period in Ghana’s political history, Rawlings’ June 4th Revolution, including preceding events and the aftermath of the Revolution. In the words of Dr Anthony Bonnah Koomson, Editor of The Catholic Standard at the time of Yankah’s celebrated column: “The book captures a momentous era in Ghana’s immediate political history, reminiscences of which the author has sough to recreate and preserve with phenomenal linguistic skill. It presents, through satire, an accurate heartbeat of a people under intense political paralysis.”

    This book makes compelling, even if hilarious, reading on Ghana’s enigmatic June 4th Revolution.

  • Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (African Writers Series)

    This anthology introduces the African literature of incarceration to the general reader, the scholar, the activist and the student. The visions and prison cries of the few African nationalists imprisoned by colonialists, who later became leaders of their independent dictatorships and in turn imprisoned their own writers and other radicals, are brought into sharper focus, thereby critically exposing the ironies of varied generations of the efforts of freedom fighters.

    Extracts of prose, poetry and plays are grouped into themes such as arrest, interrogation, torture, survival, release and truth and reconciliation.

    Contributors include: Kunle Ajibade, Obafemi Awolowo, Steve Biko, Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis Brutus, Nawal El Saadawi, M J Kariuki, Kenneth Kaunda, Caesarina Kona Makhoere, Nelson Mandela, Emma Mashinini, Felix Mnthali, Augustino Nato, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kwame Nkrumah, Abe Sachs, Ken Saro Wiwa, Wole Soyinka, and Koigi wa Wamwere.

    Although an often harrowing indictment of the history, culture and politics of the African continent and the societies from which this literature comes, the anthology presents excellent prose, poetry and drama, which stands up in its own right as serious literature to be cherished, read and studied.

  • Red Oak Heroes Series: Kofi Annan

    *Available from 15 August 2023

    Age Range: 10 – 14 years

    From the day Awo, a seven-year-old primary two girl, first hears about Mr. Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary-General, she becomes so fascinated by his great achievements that she vows to become like him.
    With the help of everyone she comes across, her Uncle, Mr. Thompson especially, Awo learns as much as she can about her role model. Her curious questions often jog the memories of those who answer them, causing them to remember even the least things they know about the first black African to occupy the United Nation Secretary-General position. Having secured her mother’s promise to take her along to visit Mr. Annan the next time he is in the country, Awo’s only prayer is for that day to come quickly. But will Awo’s dream ever come to pass?

  • The Valley of Memories (Hardcover)

    October 10th 1963, a Dutch teenage girl is sent away to Ghana by her resentful mother to marry a man she has met only once and who is more than twice her age. Arriving at the airport in Accra, a whole new world unfolds for this young girl. At first, she is shocked and disappointed by the things she sees in this new country she is to call her home. To her Ghana is hot, humid and dirty but then she meets the warm and welcoming people of Ghana and starts to open up to the country, culture and its people.

    Her new husbands job takes her to some of the most remote areas in Ghana from Accra to the Northern, Upper East and Volta Regions where she repeatedly has to build a home with the meagre resources her husband and herself have available. Whilst building her homes and family, she encounters the most fascinating, emotional, funny, unbelievable and sometimes scary experiences.

    This is a story about a young girl coming of age and finding love and happiness under the most unusual circumstances. The story will take the reader on a very vivid and colourful tour of life in post-colonial Ghana and gives the reader a history lesson about one of the most interesting periods Ghana has gone through after gaining independence from Britain and trying to build a strong and independent nation.

  • Baffour Osei Akoto: A Royal Patriot and the Making of Ghana (Hardcover)

    Foreword by President John Agyekum Kufuor

    This book is primarily composed of speeches presented at the 16th edition of the annual Re-Akoto Memorial Lectures held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. The Re Akoto Memorial Lectures, instituted by His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, life patron of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of the Ghana School of Law, seeks, amongst other things, to promote research, study and educate the citizenry on the development of Ghana’s constitutional democracy and human rights. Over the years, it has been presented by a good number of eminent Ghanaians and through which they have illuminated various spheres of life, especially issues regarding law and fundamental human rights, which are the key components that form the genesis of the famous Re-Akoto Case.

    The presenters included Kwame Pianim, one of Ghana’s eminent economists; Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang, then-acting Director of the Ghana School of Law; Chief Justice Kwasi Anim Yeboah and Attorney-General Godfred Dame. Prof Mike Aaron Oquaye, a veritable political scientist and accomplished politician, knitted the strains together to discuss how Baffour’s strides and successes reaffirmed the liberal democratic political philosophy of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He indicated that human beings have a dignity that must be protected and that dictatorial tendencies must not be accepted. Finally, provided a historical trajectory of Ghana’s stint with an authoritarian regime focusing on the country’s post-independence one-party political system.

    “Baffour excelled in this career as an Asante diplomat, a valuable repository of Asante and Ghanaian social, cultural and political history, and a defender of the power of traditional leadership in the face of the onslaught of modern post-colonial politics in Ghana.” – His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene

  • Memoirs from the Hilltop: Stories and Lessons from the School of Life (Hardcover)

    We would all be poorer if we failed to spend time reading and re-reading Memoirs from The Hilltop. They are so rich in gems for daily living and inspiration. – Justice (Mrs.) Georgina Theodora Wood (Rtd.) SOG, LLD (honoris causa) Retired Chief Justice and Member, Council of State, Ghana 

    This is an arresting book. It captures the unsuspecting reader and transports them, as an obliging captive, into the fascinating world of the author’s life’s rich experiences. – Chris Oppong FRCS, Consultant Surgeon, University Hospital, Plymouth, England, Medical Director, Rwanda Legacy of Hope (RLOH) 

    My conclusion after reading Memoirs from the Hilltop is that like Samson in the Bible, Kofi Adu Labi will kill a lion and go home without telling even father or mother about it until you have read his book. – R. G. Adu-Mante, Legal & HR Management Consultant

  • Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba (Our Ancestories)

    Age Range: 4 – 12 years

    Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba is the true story of a girl who had a difficult birth but went on to become the Queen of two ancient African kingdoms.

    Revered for her wisdom, courage, and strength, Njinga became a dominant political figure in Angola in the 1600s. This richly illustrated children’s book tells her story and the challenges she faced from the day she was born. Njinga must overcome the jealousy of her brother, the loss of her father, and the encroachment of the Portuguese at the dawn of a time of great trial for the African continent.

    This is the story of hope and courage that shows every young girl is capable of greatness..

    ★ The Story of an Actual Legendary Queen

    Queen Njinga is remembered for defying the odds and standing up for herself and her people.

    ★ A Narrative That Empowers and Motivates

    Njinga’s story is inspiring because she is an outstanding example of female governance in the history of Africa.

    ★ An Author with Passion for African History

    Born and raised in Nigeria, Ekiuwa Aire hopes that her books on African history will instill pride and acceptance in young minds about diverse cultures.

    ★ Beautiful, Vibrant Illustrations

    Natalia Popova studied at Moscow State University where her interest in visual arts and illustration was born.

    ★ Exciting Historical Facts

    Based on true events in Angola in the 1600s, the story of Queen Njinga is beautifully illustrated and presented in a way every child will enjoy and learn from. The book also includes a brief history of the Kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, where they were located on a map, as well as information on Queen Njinga’s legacy.

  • The Fear of Failure: An Autobiography

    From Agomanya in the Eastern Region of Ghana, a 65 year old J. P. Adjimani narrates his life and how his fear of failure spurred him on instead of derailing him. In his autobiography, the biochemist unravels why he was never promoted to be a professor despite having a 28-year admirable career in Ghana’s premier university, University of Ghana.

  • Fire from the North: The Origins, Growth, Development & Influence of Assemblies of Ghana, Ghana (Hardcover)

    This book examines the origins, growth and development of the Assemblies of Ghana, Ghana and its influence on the Ghanaian society from the church’s inception in 1931 to 2014. It is the most comprehensive  and up-to-date scholarly work ever documented on the history, growth and influence of the Assemblies of God, Ghana. Tracing the origins of the Assemblies of God in Ghana, the author narrates thoroughly researched finding on how the church found her way from the United States of America to Ghana.

    The book provides a well-researched discourse on the influence of the Assemblies of God on the Ghanaian society. This covers the domains of socio-economic, political, cultural and religious influences of the church, through its branches and agencies, on the larger society of Ghana.

    As the first comprehensive historical study of one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in Ghana, it makes a significant contribution to an understanding of Pentecostalism in Ghana and, by extension, Africa.

  • Revolutionary Path

    This book was compiled during the last two years of the author’s life. It was begun in response to many requests for a single volume which would contain key documents, some of them previously unpublished, which would illustrate landmarks in his career as a leading theorist and activist of the world socialist revolutionary struggle.

    Among the documents included in Parts One and Two are Editorials from the Accra Evening News, What I Mean by Positive Action, The Motion of Destiny, The Dawn Broadcast, and the full text of other important speeches and broadcasts. Introductory sections to each document provide further insight into the political thinking of this great revolutionary Pan Africanist.

  • Evangelism in Ghana — The Presbyterian Church of Ghana: 1942 – 1954

    First published in Twi in 1965

    Author’s note about the Book

    This book is the translation of an account of the last 12 years of the work of my father, the Rev. Emmanuel Victor Asihene in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.

    It refers to his work as the First Evangelist Minister appointed by the Church at a critical time in its history. He wrote the book deliberately in Twi to make the story of the Evangelism Mission that he undertook readily accessible to all members of the Church.

    He was grateful to be assigned to carry out the Mission of Evangelism. In his own words, he explains:

    “On the day of my ordination in 1960, this verse, ‘I will tell of thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation, I shall praise you,’ Psalm 22, verse 22 was my major vow and promise. With great joy therefore, I thank God that I have been chosen and given the chance to spread the word of the Lord, through Evangelism, here , in my own land, and among my own people.”

    At the time of his appointment, he had no doubt that “what was needed most was the grace and guidance of God and a great infusion with a personal spiritual strength.”

    The journeys that Rev. Asihene made, most of them on foot, to distant areas of the country were extensive — as can be seen from the list of places that he visited.

    Many of the difficult-to-read areas where he took the message of God are, even today, not readily identified on the map of Ghana. Accounts of his easy engagements with Church members, non-Christians and even with fetish priests are as fascinating as the return of backsliders, by the grace of God, into the Church.

    When I received and read my signed copy of the book 47 years ago in 1965, I knew that I would one day translate this unique record of extensive Evangelism by a local member of the Presbyterian Church in our own country, from Twi into a wider read language. I am glad and I consider it a great honour that I have been able to translate, into English, this important piece of history of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.

    During this 125th Anniversary of his birth, this Translation of this book also marks the Dedication of the commemorative building, “The Rev. E.V. Asihene Quiet Room” at the Anum Presbyterian Secondary School, where he was Headmaster, about 90 years ago.

    — Letitia Eva Obeng (nee Asihene), January 2012

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