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English-Swahili Pocket Dictionary
A concise and portable dictionary developed by two experienced and well respected teachers of Swahili. In this work they have taken into account not only the difficulties which non-Swahili speakers from many different language backgrounds have in learning the language, but also the importance of making Swahili equivalents of English words, correspond to those of the best speakers of Swahili.The English-Swahili Pocket Dictionary will be of benefit to English speakers who are learning Swahili, while Swahili speakers who are learning English will also find it invaluable.₵50.00 -
Swahili Made Easy: A Beginner’s Complete Course
This handy book is a beginner’s complete course in the Swahili language, designed especially for foreigners. The book is a result of the author’s many years of teaching experience. It is divided into two parts: part one covers pronunciation; Swahili greetings and manners; classification of nouns; adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc. in twenty-eight lessons and thirty-six exercises. part two includes a study of Swahili usage in specific situations (e.g. at home, in the market, on the road, at the airport, etc.); eleven further lessons and thirteen exercises; the key to the exercises in Parts One and Two; and a Swahili-English vocabulary of words used in the book.
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Nyakyusa-English-Swahili & English-Nyakyusa Dictionary
Unhappy with the policy of using English as the medium of instruction in secondary schools in Tanzania which left his students bewildered, a Norwegian volunteer teacher in Ipinda, Tukuyu, south western region of Tanzania decided that his students would probably cope with the foreign language only after they were grounded first in the structure of their own languages — Nyakyusa and Swahili. As a trilingual dictionary was not available, he set out to compile one and this well-produced dictionary is the product. Words, examples and usages are included.
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From Dar es Salaam to Bongoland: Urban Mutations in Tanzania
The name Dar es Salaam comes from the Arabic phrase meaning house of peace. A popular but erroneous translation is ‘haven of peace’ resulting from a mix-up of the Arabic words “dar” (house) and “bandar” (harbour). Named in 1867 by the Sultan of Zanzibar, the town has for a long time benefitted from a reputation of being a place of tranquility. The tropical drowsiness is a comfort to the socialist poverty and under-equipment that causes an unending anxiety to reign over the town. Today, for the Tanzanian, the town has become Bongoland, that is, a place where survival is a matter of cunning and intelligence (bongo means ‘brain’ in Kiswahili). Far from being an anecdote, this slide into toponomy records the mutations that affect the links that Tanzanians maintain with their principal city and the manner in which it represents them.
This book takes into account the changes by departing from the hypothesis that they reveal a process of territorialisation. What are the processes – envisaged as spatial investments – which, by producing exclusivity, demarcations and exclusions, fragment the urban space and its social fabric? Do the practices and discussions of the urban dwellers construct limited spaces, appropriated, identified and managed by communities (in other words, territories)? Dar es Salaam is often described as a diversified, relatively homogenous and integrating place. However, is it not more appropriate to describe it as fragmented?
As territorialisation can only occur through frequenting, management and localised investment, it is therefore through certain places – first shelter and residential area, then the school, daladala station, the fire hydrant and the quays – that the town is observed. This led to broach the question in the geographical sense of urban policy carried out since German colonisation to date. At the same time, the analysis of these developments allows for an evaluation of the role of the urban crisis and the responses it brings.
In sum, the aim of this approach is to measure the impact of the uniqueness of the place on the current changes. On one hand, this is linked to its long-term insertion in the Swahili civilisation, and on the other, to its colonisation by Germany and later Britain and finally, to the singularity of the post-colonial path. This latter is marked by an alternation of Ujamaa with Structural Adjustment Plans applied since 1987. How does this remarkable political culture take part in the emerging city today?
This book is a translation of De Dar es Salaam à Bongoland: Mutations urbaines en Tanzanie, published by Karthala, Paris in 2006.
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An Introduction to Symbolic Theology: The Case of Adinkra Symbols of the Akan People of Ghana
Akoa Kofi Amoateng strongly believes that Jesus’ incarnation into Jewish-specific culture and humanity as God’s communication to the world (Hebrews 1:1-3), implies the theological and understanding that God wants culture-specific peoples around the world to identify and relate to Him from their cultural and historic experiences and backgrounds. He, therefore, submits that theology and hermeneutics must be both contextual and rooted in ethnic epistemological realities. Akoa, therefore, calls for ethnothelogy and ethnohermeneutics, believing that, generally, there is nothing like one theological jackets that fits all peoples.
This work is a masterpiece and a paradigm shift into offering how peoples’ theologies and indigenous hermeneutical enterprises can be constructed in contextualization for the different peoples of the world.
“Amoateng draws attention to the critical role symbols play for African theology. He bemoans the neglect of the early missionaries to the symbolic realm which has left a paucity of theological reflections on the Adinkra symbols. He uses this lacuna to highlight symbolic theology within the wider purview of ethnotheology, which some scholars are calling ethnohermeneutics. The Adinkra symbols can thus be analyzed within the broader lenses of Africa’s rich oral history, especially if we understand orality much larger than verbal utterances, but to include symbols that speak even when words are absent.” — Gregg Okesson, Ira Galloway and D.M. Beeson Chair of Leadership Development and Evangelism; Dean, E. Stanley Jones School ofWorld Mission and Evangelism; Presidential Envoy and Director of Global Partnerships, Asbury Theological Seminary
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Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the Itineraries of Transnationalism
In Oxford Street, Accra, Ato Quayson analyzes the dynamics of Ghana’s capital city through a focus on Oxford Street, part of Accra’s most vibrant and globalized commercial district. He traces the city’s evolution from its settlement in the mid-seventeenth century to the present day. He combines his impressions of the sights, sounds, interactions, and distribution of space with broader dynamics, including the histories of colonial and postcolonial town planning and the marks of transnationalism evident in Accra’s salsa scene, gym culture, and commercial billboards.
Quayson finds that the various planning systems that have shaped the city—and had their stratifying effects intensified by the IMF-mandated structural adjustment programs of the late 1980s—prepared the way for the early-1990s transformation of a largely residential neighborhood into a kinetic shopping district. With an intense commercialism overlying, or coexisting with, stark economic inequalities, Oxford Street is a microcosm of historical and urban processes that have made Accra the variegated and contradictory metropolis that it is today.
“Oxford Street, Accra offers a fresh portrait of a rising African metropolis by one of the most original and skilled critics of the African condition. Deeply researched and packed with detail and bold in scope and analysis, Oxford Street, Accra is a unique addition to the growing body of work on contemporary African Urbanism. This extraordinary book shows the extent to which the future of urban theory might well lie in the global South.” – Achille Mbembe, author of Critique de la raison négre.
KEY SELLING POINTS:
- Oxford Street, Accra is a must-buy as an invaluable companion and compass for both newcomers and returning visitors to Accra.
- Oxford Street, Accra was chosen as one of the ‘UK Guardian’s 10 Best City Books of the World in 2014.’
- Oxford Street, Accra was also the Co-Winner of ‘The Urban History Association’s Top Award in the International Category For Books Published About World Cities in 2013 – 2014.’
- Oxford Street, Accra contains an encyclopedic knowledge of the City of Accra, tracing the city’s evolution from its settlement in the mid-seventeenth century to the present day.
- The book offers a microcosm of historical and urban knowledge of the making of the city that have transformed Accra into the sophisticated metropolis that is it today.
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We Won’t Budge
Part autobiographical, part social commentary, this is a powerful and insightful look at the situation of border intellectuals at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
In this searing memoir, Manthia Diawara revisits his early years as an emigrant in love with Swedish girls and Western rock and roll music, taking us from the nightclubs of his hometown Bamako to the cafes of Boulevard Montparnasse and the black neighbourhoods of 1970s Washington DC, USA.
This book is about the developed world – that is the former colonisers of the African continent now busy slamming shut its doors to African and Arab immigrants.
It is also about human rights violations and racism against people of colour. Diawara writes that he wanted to give a human face to African immigration in today’s global world. He describes the reasons why many Africans leave the continent – such as poverty, persecution and lack of opportunities – and writes sometimes angrily and sometimes very movingly, about their predicament in Europe and the US, where they are caught between their traditions and the West’s vacuous modernity.
“With humour and the intimacy of a conversatonal tone, Diawara writes of the ‘global’ African as a nomad at the mercy of whirlwinds of economic and political dislocation at home and racism and intolerance abroad. He is not at home in his country; he is not at home abroad. But the nomad refuses to bow down to those whirlwinds, to let evil turn him around, and against all the odds becomes an active contributor to the multiculture of the globe. This is the story of a diasporic soul that finds home in its own resilience and in so may ways it is all our story.” – Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Author of A Grain of Wheat et al)
“We Won’t Budge is destined to become a classic – it is one of the most insightful, layered and moving accounts of the modern African Diaspora.” – Patricia Williams (Author of The Alchemy of Race & Rights et al)
₵85.00We Won’t Budge
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Bu Me Bɛ: Proverbs of the Akans (Hardcover)
Bu Me Bε: Proverbs of the Akans is the most extensive bi-lingual Twi Proverbs Dictionary published since JG Christaller’s A Collection of 3600 Twi Proverbs (1879). Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Introduction demonstrates how these proverbs can be interpreted within the tested and contested theories of meaning and literary production to show how they compare with philosophical musings from ancient Greece to England. To understand these proverbs, one needs to understand the culture from which they come. The matrilineal culture traces the familial lineage from the mother’s side hence the Akan saying that; ‘a child may resemble the father, but he has a family’ – the family being a reference to one’s mother and others within the mother’s bloodline.
This is invaluable. Our languages cannot grow as literary languages unless we also develop tools that will enable their effective use. Our languages must be in dialogue with not only the languages of Europe but also those of Africa and Asia. This dictionary is an important step in that direction. – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Director, International Centre for Writing and Translation, University of California
If language is a window to reality, then Appiah’s Bu Me Be may be justly described as an opening to an entire universe. This collection will be useful not only for linguists, but for anyone that takes Akan culture seriously, from anthropologists to historians, to cultural critics and even to modern-day product advertisers. It is a veritable treasure trove. – Ato Quayson, Director, Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies, University of Toronto
An invaluable collection of some 7000 proverbs that speak to the depth and nuance of Akan and Asante life, thought, belief and social organisation. – Emmanuel Kwaku Acheampong, Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Key Selling Points
- The bi-lingual arrangement makes this dictionary unique and user-friendly to non-Akan speakers. A specialist African language text that will be of interest to academics and students on African history and language courses.
- An informed collection of over 7000 proverbs published over a century after Christaller’s book of 3600 proverbs was first published.
- Appiah’s Introduction contextualises the nuanced meaning of the proverbs to reveal the wit and wisdom of the Akan language and how it compares with other world languages.
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Tetteh Quarshie, The Star to Follow
In this book, Dr. Nii Amu Darko outlines the life of his ancestor Tetteh Quarshie and how he brought cocoa, Ghana’s number one cash crop to Ghana. He outlines the great man’s family background and adventurous trip to Fernando Po where he spent seven years on a cocoa plantation learning everything he possibly could about the cash crop. Dr. Nii Darko dubs Tetteh Quarshie the star to follow for his dedication and unique qualities as a hardworking, ethical, selfless son of Ghana who toiled to bring the crop that became the backbone of Ghana’s economy. Especially interesting is how Darko tells the unique story of Tetteh Quarshie from the family point of view, revealing intriguing titbits never before known by the public.
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Avo Nee Koasi Ama Ekyi (Nzema)
This book deals with the emergence of two states within the Nzema state.
Originally, the Nzema state was one entity but as the succession to the throne changed hands, one Paramount Chief moved the throne to another capital within the Nzema state.This brought a bitter quarrel between two opposing factions which later generated into a civil war in the whole Nzema State.
The two opposing factions fought well over six years and after the then Governor of the Gold coast had intervened, a parley was convened and after they had settled their differences in the interest of peace and mutual co-existence, they agreed to the creation of two states, i.e. Eastern and Western Nzema, with two Paramount Chiefs.
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Tour of Duty: Journeys Around Nigeria
In March 2009 travel writer Pelu Awofeso laced his boots and set out on a solo trip across Nigeria; he christened the mission the ‘Beautiful Underbelly’ project, a brave attempt to re-discover his home country, which is more known abroad as the breeding ground for scam-artists than for its friendly and hospitable citizens. With just a backpack and a camera, Awofeso crisscrossed 18 states in eight months, wandering the capital cities and chatting up total strangers, all so that he can learn something new from the locals.After three months and eight capital cities, he already clocked over 6000 kilometres, a distance his movement tracker dopplr.com describes as being the equivalent of “one percent of the distance to the moon”. This volume is a record of a slice of Nigeria and Nigerians as seen through the eyes of a Nigerian writer with an abiding love for everyday people
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These Bones Will Rise Again
What are the right questions to ask when seeking out the true spirit of a nation?
In November 2017 the people of Zimbabwe took to the streets in an unprecedented alliance with the military. Their goal, to restore the legacy of Chimurenga, the liberation struggle, and wrest their country back from over thirty years of Robert Mugabe’s rule.
In an essay that combines bold reportage, memoir and critical analysis, Zimbabwean novelist and journalist Panashe Chigumadzi reflects on the ‘coup that was not a coup’, the telling of history and manipulation of time and the ancestral spirts of two women – her own grandmother and Mbuya Nehanda, the grandmother of the nation.
Chigumadzi successfully nests the intimate charge of her poignant personal story in the sweeping historical account and mythology of Zimbabwe. – Brian Chikwava, author of Harare North
Chigumadzi’s exploration of personal, family and national history reincarnates in stark, vivid images, many of those interred in the shadows of her country’s ‘Big Men’. – Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of Nervous Conditions
₵80.00These Bones Will Rise Again
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Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree
*Available from 15th September 2019.
Based on interviews with young women who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, this poignant novel by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani tells the timely story of one girl who was taken from her home in Nigeria and her harrowing fight for survival. Includes an afterword by award-winning journalist Viviana Mazza.
A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband–these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see that these dreams aren’t too far out of reach.
But the girl’s dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest where she is forced to follow her captors’ radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she’s been told.
Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life–her future–is hers to fight for.
₵145.00Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree
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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
₵65.00
