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Rose and the Burma Sky
A gripping and intimate historical novel of a black soldier’s experience in the Second World War – a rare and moving tale of love and sacrifice.
One war, one soldier, one enduring love
1939: In a village in south-east Nigeria on the brink of the Second World War, young Obi watches from a mango tree as a colonial army jeep speeds by, filled with soldiers laughing and shouting, their buttons shining in the sun. To Obi, their promise of a smart uniform and regular wages is hard to resist, especially as he has his sweetheart Rose to impress and a family to support.
Years later, when Rose falls pregnant to another man, his heart is shattered. As the Burma Campaign mounts, and Obi is shipped out to fight, he is haunted by the mystery of Rose’s lover. When his identity comes to light, Obi’s devastation leads to a tragic chain of unexpected events.
In Rose and the Burma Sky, Rosanna Amaka weaves together the realities of war, the pain of first love and how following your heart might not always be the best course of action. Its gritty boy’s-eye view brings a spare and impassioned intensity, charging it with universal resonance and power.
₵150.00Rose and the Burma Sky
₵150.00 -
Someone Birthed Them Broken: Stories
In this startling collection of short fiction, Ama Asantewa Diaka creates a vibrant portrait of young Ghanaians’ today, captured in the experiences of characters whose lives bump against one other in friendship, passion, hope, and heartache. Men like Opoku Sr., not yet forty and struggling to keep his family’s cocoa business afloat after his father’s unexpected passing. Opoku strains under the burden of caring for his eight younger siblings and the child whose mother ran off. When his new girlfriend tells him she’s pregnant, he knows he has nothing left to give.
Years later, that girlfriend’s son, Opoku Jr., now faces his own troubles, including his girlfriend Boatemaa, who (correctly) suspects he is sneaking around, and Amoafoa, the woman he’s seeing on the side. And there is John, who confides to his crush Baaba about a surprising encounter with a male friend over a game of FIFA; Baaba, who falls into a whirlwind romance with her professor that ends in violence; and their friend Ayeley, who is learning to accept pleasure after being raised to believe it is sinful.
Diaka charts this constellation of interconnected lives in thirteen stories, exploring themes which run through the collection like a current: corruption and economic hardship, trauma and infidelity, shame, neglect, and the tribulations of the female body. In telling their stories, Diaka illuminates hope, freedom, and triumph that can be found in the everyday—the bonds between women, the joys of love and sex and art and dancing, the possibility of repair and redemption.
Renowned for her spoken word artistry, Ama Asantewa Diaka demonstrates her lyrical brilliance in this emotionally rich work that unveils profound truths about her country, its inhabitants, and the universality of human experience.
₵160.00 -
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)
₵250.00