• Dark Humor

    Dark Humor (4)

  • Love

    Love (2)

  • Satire

    Satire (10)

  • Sex & Marriage

    Sex & Marriage (7)

  • Highlife Time 3

    Highlife is Ghana’s most important modern home grown dance-music that has its roots in traditional music infused with outside influences coming from Europe and the Americas. Although the word ‘highlife’ was not coined until the 1920s, its origins can be traced back to the regimental brass bands, elite-dance orchestras and maritime guitar and accordion groups of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. Highlife is, therefore, one of Africa’s earliest popular music genres.

    The book traces the origins of highlife music to the present – and include information on palmwine music, adaha brass bands, concert party guitar bands and dance bands, right up to off-shoots such as Afro-rock, Afrobeat, burger highlife, gospel highlife, hiphop highlife (i.e. hiplife) and contemporary highlife.
    The book also includes chapters on the traditional background or roots of highlife, the entrance of women into the Ghanaian highlife profession and the biographies of numerous Ghanaian (and some Nigerian) highlife musicians, composers and producers. It also touches on the way highlife played a role in Ghana’s independence struggle and the country’s quest for a national – and indeed Pan-African – identity.

    The book also provides information on music styles that are related to highlife, or can be treated as cousins of highlife, such as the maringa of Sierra Leone, the early guitar styles of Liberia, the juju music of Nigeria the makossa of the Cameroon/ It also touches on the popular music of Ghana’s Francophone neighbours.

    There is also a section on the Black Diasporic input into highlife, through to the impact of African American and Caribbean popular music styles like calypsos, jazz, soul, reggae, disco, hiphop and rap and dancehall. that have been integrated into the highlife fold. Thus, highlife has not only influenced other African countries but is also an important cultural bridge uniting the peoples of Africa and its Diaspora.

    Highlife Time 3

    250.00
  • Sebiticals Chapter X

    For eons, the character of the neglected wise observer has captured imaginations. Be they the community trickster, clown, gossip or drunkard, they have always been a thorn in the flesh of social miscreants. There is no one name for them, as they tend to be many things to many folks. Every society has their version. Audiences love them, hate them and love them again. These fellows have no allies. Their allegiance is to all. Their knife cuts both ways, as does their tongue. Oh, yeah. Ever the custodians of spicy, social secrets, they issue forth the most acidic insults. But, abuse them? Naaah, these characters are insult-proof!

    In this salacious new collection, Nana Awere Damoah has consummated the essences of this conceptual character. More than that, the author has effected their relevance in the national body politic. In Sebiticals Chapter X, Wofa Kapokyikyi the social commentator entertains, informs and pricks the conscience – as does his anecdotal nephew.

    Episode after episode, the reader cannot help but conclude that if there is a time the nation needs a voice of conscience, that time is not tomorrow. Bottomline? A Kapokyikyi is an institution that keeps the morals of society in check.

  • Sebitically Speaking

    Sebitically Speaking is an uplifting elixir that courses through the hearts and minds of readers and awakens their consciousness regarding how to improve themselves and their country. In confronting the complicated issues that perpetually frustrate Ghanaians, Damoah’s style was not to depress or provoke insanity, but to deftly inspire readers with a view to affecting positive change.

    For someone who has written four great books, Sebitically Speaking is an incontrovertible confirmation of Damoah’s literary genius. His uncanny ability to transform debilitating and chaotic socio-political topics into an exhilarating literary rollercoaster, using a perfect blend of wit and humour, and inducing a mixture of laughter and tears from readers, is especially evident in this book.

    Sebitically Speaking is an irresistible literary tiger nut that every lover of Ghana must chew.

  • The Imported Ghanaian

    With her rose tinted glasses firmly in place, the Imported Ghanaian deluded herself, believing that she could simply waltz into Kotoka International Airport with a grin like the winning ticket in the national lottery, and the band would strike up whilst the jubilant nation screamed, “Akwaaba-o, akwaaba, our sister has returned back to us.” She returned home thinking she was as Ghanaian as any other and that she would fit in snugly with the skills of a chameleon. The reality proved otherwise as she plunged headfirst into the endurance test of living in Ghana, where nothing is ever what it seems. Layer by layer, as if peeling an onion, each ‘coming back home’ cultural reality weaves her through a world where you can never be too sure, where an invitation is not exactly an invitation, where you have to die to find out how popular you are, and where being a Ghanaian and being Ghanaian are often two opposing concepts.

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

    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.

  • Confessions of an African Christian

    If you are reading this blurb because you are looking for salacious scandals or rants against God and the church, sorry to disappoint you but this book doesn’t have what you are looking for.

    But if you are interested in reading about an odd encounter with a prophet, a child led rebellion, quite a number of self deprecating revelations, some honest self-assessment and embarrassing situations experienced by a young woman in her journey to get closer to God, and understand better what it means to be a Christian, this might just be the book for you.

  • The Waiting

    A largely allegorical exploration of the loneliness of an existence based on an alien world-view, Martin Egblewogbe’s The Waiting is a collection rooted in metropolitan Ghana, but its primary territory is the human mind. Juxtaposing his training as a physicist against his curiosity about local myth, he creates a universe that’s both entertaining and erudite. In A Photograph of K & S, Smiling, a completely self-obsessed man, returned home after his father’s death, attempts to explain away his unremarkable life based on one perceived slight from his youth; in The Gonjon Pin (title story for the 2014 Caine Prize anthology) a genius working on a program to predict lottery numbers is stumped by the appearance of an intruder’s disembodied genitals on the wall of his computer engine room; The Making, Rain and Back to the Halls explore futility in different ways, while Atta explores life after death – a theme that reoccurs in a much bleaker guise in The Crwoling Caterpillar. Often Kafkaesque in its isolation of characters and a pervading sense of powerlessness, The Waiting nevertheless maintains a constant hum of humour, nowhere more so than in The Going Down of Pastor Mintumi – in which a pastor who has discovered the pleasures of the flesh late in life overindulges with hilarious consequences. The title story, The Waiting, is judgement day in a twisted mind, filled with the kinds of questions that haunt a life on earth, which, ultimately, is the quest of all art.

    The Waiting

    125.00
  • Book Set: Nana Awere Damoah Books (8 books)

    The full set of Nana Awere Damoah’s 8 books is available now, including his new book Sebiticals Chapter X. Autographed.

    Get the 8 books together for GHS 415 instead of GHS 435.

    Books in this set

    Excursions in My Mind

    Through the Gates of Thought

    Tales from Different Tails

    I Speak of Ghana

    Sebitically Speaking

    Nsempiisms

    Quotes by NAD

    Sebiticals Chapter X

  • 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.

  • From Britain to Bokoor: The Ghanaian Musical Journey of John Collins

    Highlife, a popular West African genre, is easily the soundtrack to the life journey of the nation Ghana. And if there is one personality who has contributed the most to documenting it, it is Professor John Collins, a naturalized Ghanaian of British descent and a professor of music at the University of Ghana, Legon. Collins originally accompanied his parents to Ghana in 1952, when his father was setting up the philosophy department at the University of Ghana. Returning to Britain with his mother, Collins was educated in Bristol, Manchester and London, earning a science degree. He was also playing music and then he returned to Ghana in 1969 to study archaeology and sociology at the University of Ghana.

    Eventually he himself became an academic teaching and researching popular music. This book captures the life and music career of Collins. What makes him an enigma is his personal involvement on the road as a guitar playing member of concert party bands. His working relations with Fela, E.T. Mensah, Kofi Ghanaba, Victor Uwaifo, Prof. J. H. Kwabena Nketia and many legendary names in the music space of West Africa make him a legend in his own right. This is the story of a “white man” man who came to Africa to legitimize the place of highlife as consequential to world music

  • A Beacon of Hope: Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Dreams

    Prepare to embark on a remarkable journey as you dive into the captivating memoir of the legendary actor, Frederick Nii Yaatey Amugi. This book opens the door to his extraordinary life, offering not only a glimpse into his illustrious career but also invaluable insights and wisdom earned along the way. From the humblest beginnings to the grandest stages, Fred Amugi’s story is a testament to the transformative power of pushing beyond the confines of conventional success.
    With heartfelt anecdotes, practical advice, and behind-the-scenes tales, this memoir serves as an unmissable source of inspiration. Whether you’re an aspiring actor hungry for wisdom or simply in search of motivation, this book is your guide to breaking through boundaries and leaving an indelible mark in your chosen field. Get ready to be entertained, inspired, and motivated by the incredible journey of the legendary Fred Amugi. Your extraordinary reading adventure begins here!

  • …Power to the People: Reflections on Retrogressive Politics

    Published in 1984…Power to the People is a doctor’s medicine for Ghana’s ills. The pill is occasionally bitter, but is coated with a generous layer of therapeutic laughter, to help its message slide gently into the appropriate organs of the national digestive system.

    Presented in the form of prose, poetry and cartoons, the first part of the book, subtitled The Past, covers the Nkrumah, Kotoka, Afrifa & Ankrah, Busia, Acheampong & Akuffo, Rawlings 1979 and Limann eras. The second part, subtitled The Present, covers the first three years of the second coming of Rawlings.

    In a satirical treatment of our history over almost 30 years, this book sheds a great light onto the paths that Ghana traversed in those heady years, in a form that is easy to read, reflect on and learn.

    In the author’s own words, “in recording these…my hope is that others would be induced to ponder over and question loudly some of those short-comings, lapses and omissions in our national character and situation which are stifling our growth and retarding the country’s progress. If our questions get loud and irritating enough to cause discomfiture in our policy makers, then the reader wouldn’t have been bored for nothing.”

  • Madness & Tea

    Fans of the ‘Madness’ category on the blog Mind of Malaka, rejoice! This book contains pages and pages of just that: absolute insanity, frivolity and utterly unusable information. If you’re ever in need a break from reality; or a little something take your mind off the woes of the world; or if you haven’t found the strength to find humor in your own sorrow, I offer the my angst – and that of half a dozen other willing victims as well – as a panacea for those problems.

    Lose yourself in the misadventures of Butt Crack Man or imagine yourself as a victorious troll-capturing woman in rural Tennessee. Fun, fun, fun for everyone!

    Warning: May cause mild offense to just about everyone.

    Madness & Tea

    45.00
  • Voices of Ghana: Literary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System, 1955-57 (Second Edition)

    Ghana’s first radio programme of original literature, Singing Net, began in 1955 as part of the development of a national radio station in the years leading to independence in 1957. Its centralaim was to bring Ghanaian writers to the forefront of cultural programming as part of the Africanisation of radio in Ghana. It was a critical cultural expression of the radical changes that were unfolding across the colonial world. The programme successfully introduced listeners to a series of pioneering Ghanaian authors who would go on to become significant figures of Anglophone West African literature in the early postcolonial decades: Efua Sutherland, Frank Parkes, Amu Djoleto, Geormbeeyi Adali-Mortty, Albert Kayper-Mensah, Kwesi Brew, Cameron Duodu, J.H. Nketia and many others.

    The anthology, Voices of Ghana (1958) is a collection of the poetry, short stories, play scripts and critical discussions that were aired on the Gold Coast (later Ghana) Broadcasting System (1954-1958).Both Singing Net and Voices of Ghana were edited by the BBC producer, Henry Swanzy.

    The context of Ghana’s independence, the singularity of the anthology’s history, and the significance of many of the writers all contribute to the importance of this text. This second edition is a timely intervention into recent debates within postcolonial studies and world literature on the importance of broadcast culture in the dissemination of “new literatures” from the colonial world. It includes an unabridged version of the 1958 text, a new introduction and footnoted annotations,which draw on extensive research undertaken in Ghana and Britain. It will appeal to a general readership with an interest in Ghanaian literature, 1950s broadcast culture, the figure of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the making of a national literature in the era of decolonisation, as well as engaging scholars. The new edition presents a deeply insightful and engaging history of Voices of Ghana and reintroduces the original works on the occasion of the anthology’s 60th anniversary.

    Victoria Ellen Smith is a Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Ghana, Legon

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