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The Daughters of Nandi
As she took her dying breath, Nandi Mhlongo, mother of Shaka kaSenzangakhona, cursed the house of Zulu and her family, the Mhlongos, for the disrespect she endured at their hands. In the ancestral realm, Nandi worries that her malediction may have been rash and too dangerous for the descendants of the two houses. The curse can be undone but it will need a human medium to convey the message to the progeny.
Through three historical periods, three women who are extraordinary in their different ways will seek to get restitution for Nani. Gentle Keeya, a Motswana woman of the House of Moagi who marries one of Nandi’s descendants as the English, the Boers and the Zulu go to the war in the 19th century; Uju, a spirited married woman who carves a space for herself in history during the forced removals of Sophiatown in the 20th century; and in the 21st century Amangwe, who reluctantly joins her fellow students as they speak up against a meaningless freedom during the #FeesMustFall protests.
Will any of these three women manage to ensure Nandi Mhlongo is appeased and if not, what shall be the consequences to the Houses of Mhlongo and Zulu and to the three Daughters of Nandi themselves?
An engaging debut which seamlessly weaves fact, fiction and spiritualities while subverting the way the reader perceives history.
₵100.00The Daughters of Nandi
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The Ones We Find
Age Range: 15+ years
Available from 11th October, 2023
Something Happened Last Night…
Five years ago, a chance meeting with Femi Uzoechi changed Marilyn’s life. Except for the part she keeps under lock and key in her house of cards. The line between her past and the one she wanted was long drawn in the sand. But all that changed on the eve of her wedding.
When an urgent call drags Marilyn to work on her day off, a cryptic conversation with Femi leaves her with unanswered questions. ‘Something happened last night,’ he says.
Hours later, Femi is dead.
An accident? Suicide? Murder? The police see no foul play. Neither does Femi’s TV-famous widow. But Marilyn can’t shake off those haunting words. As she digs up the graves of Femi’s past in pursuit of the truth, the cracks in her own life begin to surface, threatening to send everything she’s built crumbling down. Every thread she unravels takes her a step closer to the scattered pieces of the girl she left behind, a crossroads she can no longer evade, and a killer with nothing to lose.₵100.00The Ones We Find
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Ìgbà Èwe: Translated Poems of Emily R. Grosholz (Yoruba)
Ìgbà Èwe by Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Yoruba-translated collection of poems written originally in English as Childhood (2014) by Emily R. Grosholz.
A contemplation on life and places through the process of adopting and raising children, this work features side-by-side placement of the original twenty-six poems in English and the Yoruba translations, with illustrations by Yemisi Aribisala, presenting both textual and visual interpretations for a bilingual audience, and all those interested in both language worlds.
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The Usurper’s Dream (Weaving of the First Gods #1)
“If you can, you wrestle with fate and damn everything else”
The story of Osei Tutu begins under the tyranny of the mighty Denkyira. Destined for a life of captivity, Osei Tutu must risk everything to free his people from the over a century rule of Denkyira. His fight will cause division among the very gods that set him on his path and he will threaten everything in his quest for freedom.
The Usurper’s Dream combines all the elements of pre-colonial legends: adventure, magic and history in describing the lives of its heroes. A delightful, entertaining story with disparate takes on characters whose belief in magic, gods and destiny shapes their lives.
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The Days of Silence
Osasé has a secret she cannot share.
Not even with her two sisters and mother, as they all battle to cope with the complexities of sisterhood, the fragile balances in mother-daughter relationships, and the deep scars of marriages gone awry. The story traces Osasé’s girl-to-woman journey of self-discovery from Kano, to Abuja, to Grenoble, and her fight for survival as her life slowly comes undone at the seams. The heart-warming narrative is reminiscent of Little Women but modern, urban, and with a blindsiding twist in the tale.
The Days of Silence is a poignant coming-of-age story about identity, the unbreakable bonds of family, displacement, survival, and the triumph of a woman’s spirit.
₵110.00The Days of Silence
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Saro
On a visit to the coast of Marina, Lagos, Siwoolu and his young family are lured by a traitor to a grand merchant ship where they are captured by slaveholders masquerading as traders. On the way to the new world, they are rescued by abolitionists on a British naval ship and sent to Freetown, a haven for freed slaves.
They settle in their new home, grow their family, and become successful merchants, trading goods between Freetown and Eko. Dotunu, Siwoolu’s wife, falls in love with another man and is caught in a love triangle. But their lives are upended again when they hear that the kingdom has selected the traitor as king. Siwoolu, content with his new life, yet fearful of a curse that lurks in the shadows, refuses to return, but Dotunu is determined to keep the traitor from the throne. She turns to their son, Oșolu, who is running from his own demons, to seize the throne that is rightfully theirs.
Saro is a multigenerational tale of betrayal and restitution, love and war, inspired by true events that will take the reader from the rocky terrain of Abeokuta and the burgeoning city of Lagos to the lion mountains of Freetown and Hastings of Sierra Leone from the 1830s to the 1850s.
₵110.00Saro
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Five Brown Envelopes
Nduka “Kaka” Kabiri’s company is in trouble. A legacy inherited from his late father, Construction Lions Limited will be liquidated after their multi-billion-dollar project in Northeastern Nigeria is seized and destroyed by terrorists.
To save his company, Kaka’s bid must win a World-Bank- sponsored rail project tender. This contract will pay off all his debt and make Kaka one of the richest men in Africa. The stakes are high, and greedy, powerful, dangerous men in the corridors of power—and some close enough to walk the corridors of his own home—will do anything to stop Kaka from winning the rail tender.
Things become dangerous for him when a beautiful seductress, Tsemaye, appears. She is followed in sequence by five brown envelopes whose mysterious contents threaten to destroy his young family, ensuring that he may lose more than just the rail tender.
Five Brown Envelopes is a gripping thriller in the tradition of Jeffrey Archer and Richard North Patterson.
₵110.00Five Brown Envelopes
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Freshwater
An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born “with one foot on the other side.” Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.
Ada has always been unusual. As an infant in southern Nigeria, she is a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents successfully prayed her into existence, but she becomes a troubled child, prone to violent fits of anger and grief, developing separate selves within her. Ada is more than just volatile – she is an ogbanje, born “with one foot on the other side.” When Ada travels to America for college, a traumatic event crystallizes her selves into something more powerful.
Based in the author’s realities and narrated by these selves, Freshwater maps how Ada’s life spirals in a dangerous direction as her alters – now protective, now hedonistic – move into control.
Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.
₵115.00Freshwater
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The Hundred Wells of Salaga
Aminah lives an idyllic life until she is brutally separated from her home and forced on a journey that turns her from a daydreamer into a resilient woman. Wurche, the willful daughter of a chief, is desperate to play an important role in her father’s court. These two women’s lives converge as infighting among Wurche’s people threatens the region, during the height of the slave trade at the end of the 19th century.
Set in pre-colonial Ghana, The Hundred Wells of Salaga is a story of courage, forgiveness, love and freedom. Through the experiences of Aminah and Wurche, it offers a remarkable view of slavery and how the scramble for Africa affected the lives of everyday people.
₵120.00The Hundred Wells of Salaga
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From Charleston to Accra (Hardcover)
Age Range: 3 – 8 years
From Charleston to Accra is a children’s book following the story of Leela as she moves with her family from their home in Charleston, South Carolina to Accra, Ghana. She juggles between excitement about the move and nervousness about leaving her familiar surroundings and friends. The family has a stop in Hamburg, Germany on their way to Accra and has a few adventures there. Eventually Leela is happy and excited to explore her new home with her family.
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Season Of Crimson Blossoms
WINNER OF THE NLNG NIGERIA PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
An affair between 55-year-old widow Binta Zubairu and 25-year-old weed dealer Reza was bound to provoke condemnation in conservative Northern Nigeria. Brought together in unusual circumstances, Binta and Reza faced a need they could only satisfy in each other. Binta – previously reconciled with God – now yearns for intimacy after the sexual repression of her marriage, the pain of losing her first son and the privations of widowhood. Meanwhile, Reza’s heart lies empty and waiting to be filled due to the absence of a mother. The situation comes to a head when Binta’s wealthy son confronts Reza, with disastrous consequences. This story of love and longing – set against undercurrents of political violence – unfurls gently, revealing layers of emotion that defy age, class and religion.
₵120.00Season Of Crimson Blossoms
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A Possible Future: An Anthology of the Best Nigerian Writing (1789 – 2018)
Spanning two hundred years and multiple genres, A Possible Future uses gorgeous excerpts from over eighty literary works to showcase the inventiveness in Nigerian letters and the various zeitgeists—colonialism, despotism, Afropolitanism, postcolonialism, race and sexuality—that have defined it throughout the country’s history. The writers whose works are represented here—A. Igoni Barrett, Taiye Selasi, Gbenga Adesina, Helen Oyeyemi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Niyi Osundare, and many more—remind the world of our fraught yet rich literary backstory and point towards the immense possibilities awaiting us in its future.
₵120.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
The Year of Return
In December 2019, as Ghana’s vibrant streets buzz with the climax of the “Year of Return,” an initiative marking 400 years since the first enslaved Africans were forcibly taken to Virginia, Adwapa, a Ghanaian journalist living in the U.S., decides to journey back to her homeland. Accompanied by friends, she seeks to reconnect with his roots during this historic commemoration, unaware that the trip will lead them into the heart of a mystery that transcends time and reality.
When the celebrations reach their zenith, the Atlantic Ocean, witness to untold horrors of the past, begins to stir with an ancient and restless energy. From its depths emerge the spirits of the enslaved, those who perished in the harrowing Middle Passage, returning not in peace but in turmoil. Their emergence sends shockwaves around the globe, transforming the “Year of Return” into a haunting spectacle of reawakened histories and unresolved grievances.
As the line between the living and the dead blurs, Adwapa finds herself caught in a whirlwind of supernatural events and historical reckonings. With each passing day, the ghosts grow more powerful, their centuries-old sorrows manifesting in a series of chilling, vengeful acts that threaten to unravel the very fabric of the present.
₵120.00The Year of Return
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Taduno’s Song
The day a stained brown envelope arrives from Taduno’s homeland, he knows that the time has come to return from exile.
Arriving full of trepidation, the musician discovers that his community no longer recognises him, believing that Taduno is dead. His girlfriend Lela has disappeared, taken away by government agents. As he wanders through his house in search of clues, he realises that any traces of his old life have been erased. All that was left of his life and himself are memories. But Taduno finds a new purpose: to unravel the mystery of his lost life and to find his lost love. Through this search, he comes to face a difficult decision: to sing for love or to sing for his people.
Taduno’s Song is a moving tale of sacrifice, love and courage.
₵125.00Taduno’s Song
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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.
₵125.00The Waiting
₵125.00