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A Cowrie of Hope (African Writers Series)
“These were the nineties,” reflects the narrator of A Cowrie of Hope, and for the young widow Nasula they are years of relentless economic hardship and privation. She dreams of a better life for her beautiful daughter, Sula, free from poverty and independent of marriage. But when Nasula finds herself unable to pay for Sula’s education, her hopes seem to have been extinguished – until a friend advised her to go to Lusaka and sell her last sack of highly sought-after Mbala beans. Nasula makes the journey, but in the city she finds herself exposed to new, and predatory, dangers.
In A Cowrie of Hope Binwell Sinyangwe captures the rhythms of a people whose poverty has not diminished their dignity, where hope can only be accompanied by small acts of courage, and where friendship has not lost its value.
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The Return of the Water Spirit (African Writers Series)
Set in Angola in the late 1980s, a time of war, and when the Marxist-orientated ruling elite became engulfed by corruption, nepotism and rampant capitalism.Three centuries earlier, a hideous crime occurred, the beheading of a slave who had had inappropriate relations with his Master’s daughter. Now, in the very same Kinaxixi Square in the city of Luanda buildings are falling down one by one baffling the country’s engineers. Many describe this mysterious process as ‘Luanda Syndrome, God’s punishment on a degenerate society.
Drawing on the essence of African mythology which had all but been obliterated by history, could this be explained by the return of a Water Spirit (the ‘kianda’)?
The novel focuses on the interplay between these two forces-the forces of old and new. Just like faith can move mountains, the spirit of the water can move cities.
This book is a scathing critique of Angola’s ruling elite, for abandoning their socialist principles in favour of rampant capitalism.
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Houseboy (African Writers Series, AWS29)
Toundi Ondoua, the rural African protagonist of Houseboy, encounters a world of prisms that cast beautiful but unobtainable glimmers, especially for a black youth in colonial Cameroon.Houseboy, written in the form of Toundi’s captivating diary and translated from the original French, discloses his awe of the white world and a web of unpredictable experiences. Early on, he escapes his father’s angry blows by seeking asylum with his benefactor, the local European priest who meets an untimely death. Toundi then becomes “the Chief European’s ‘boy’–the dog of the King.” Toundi’s attempt to fulfill a dream of advancement and improvement opens his eyes to troubling realities. Gradually, preconceptions of the Europeans come crashing down on him as he struggles with his identity, his place in society, and the changing culture.₵55.00 -
The Clothes of Nakedness (African Writers Series)
Winner of The Commonwealth Writers Prize 1999 and The Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best First Book Africa 1999.Gabriel Bukari is an out-of-work taxi driver living from hand-to-mouth in a poor suburb of Accra: honest, kind-hearted, and faithful to his wife. When he meets Mystique Mysterious, the ‘big man’ who can get him a job, he is exposed to temptations he has never faced before.In this lively portrait of relations between rich and poor in urban Ghana, Benjamin Kwakye explores the seductive power of corruption and shows how ordinary people can be manipulated to make choices which threaten their community life.₵55.00 -
The Enemy Within (African Writers Series)
Set in South Africa in the early 1990s, against a backdrop of de Klerk’s rise to power, Steve Jacobs tells the story of Jeremy Spielman, a Jewish junior barrister, and his defense of a Xhosa man accused of murder.
The murder trial, an Afrikaner girlfriend, and a mother who has tried to keep him from gentiles his whole life, all force Jeremy to confront his own love-hate relationship with the anti-apartheid struggle, South Africa’s almost unconscious racism, anti-Semitism, and his faith in an unjust legal system.
Steve Jacobs trained as a lawyer but left his legal career to concentrate on writing. He is an active campaigner against cruelty to animals and has worked with squatters at Crossroads and in a local group opposing a nuclear power station.
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Beyond the Horizon (African Writers Series)
Gazing at her naked body in the mirror, Mara reflects on her transformation from naive Ghanaian village girl into a prostitute in a German brothel. Mara has been deceived by her husband, Akobi, into coming to Europe to find a “paradise,” but, as the truth about Akobi and her new life unfolds, she realizes she is trapped. The expectations of her family in Africa force her to remain, living a lie. As she fights back, she finds the revenge she takes can in no way compensate for her loss of innocence and lifetime exile from her homeland.This is a natural storyteller’s compelling and sobering account of the ruthless exploitation of women in Africa and Europe.Amma Darko was born in Tamale, Ghana, and grew up in Accra. After living in Germany, she returned to Ghana. Beyond the Horizon, first published in German, is Amma Darko’s first novel.
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So Long a Letter (African Writers Series)
Written by award-winning African novelist Mariama Ba and translated from the original French, So Long a Letter has been recognized as one of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. The brief narrative, written as an extended letter, is a sequence of reminiscences—some wistful, some bitter—recounted by recently widowed Senegalese schoolteacher Ramatoulaye Fall. Addressed to a lifelong friend, Aissatou, it is a record of Ramatoulaye’s emotional struggle for survival after her husband betrayed their marriage by taking a second wife. This semi-autobiographical account is a perceptive testimony to the plight of educated and articulate Muslim women. Angered by the traditions that allow polygyny, they inhabit a social milieu dominated by attitudes and values that deny them status equal to men. Ramatoulaye hopes for a world where the best of old customs and new freedom can be combined.Considered a classic of contemporary African women’s literature, So Long a Letter is a must-read for anyone interested in African literature and the passage from colonialism to modernism in a Muslim country.Winner of the prestigious Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.
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The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (African Writers Series, AWS43)
A railway freight clerk in Ghana attempts to hold out against the pressures that impel him toward corruption in both his family and his country. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is the novel that catapulted Ayi Kwei Armah into the limelight. The novel is generally a satirical attack on the Ghanaian society during Kwame Nkrumah’s regime and the period immediately after independence in the 1960s. It is often claimed to rank with Things Fall Apart as one of the high points of post-colonial African Literature.₵55.00 -
The Concubine (African Writers Series, AWS25)
Ihuoma, a beautiful young widow, has the admiration of the entire community in which she lives, and especially of the hunter Ekwueme. Obedient to the expectations of the traditional society they belong to, they forswear their love so that Ekwueme can marry the girl to whom he had been betrothed since birth. But their passion is fated and jealousy, a love potion and the closeness of the spirit world lift this simple tale on to a tragic plane.₵55.00 -
Mine Boy (African Writers Series, AWS6)
When Xuma move to Johannesburg he is a naive country boy, but the impact of harsh city life awakens him to the new ways and values of radically different world. His vision of a ‘man without colour’, a raceless society, is shattered by the realities of his underprivileged existence.First published in 1946, this novel was one of the first books to expose universally the condition of black South Africans under a white regime. Abrahams’ forceful but restrained images of discrimination in the gold mines, the appalling housing and Xuma’s simple, humanitarian act of defiance, struck a chord around the world. Mine Boy has remained a central influence on South African fiction for over fifty years.
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A Man of the People (African Writers Series, AWS31)
As Minister for Culture, the Honourable M. A. Nanga is ‘a man of the people’, as cynical as he is charming, and a roguish opportunist. At first, the contrast between Nanga and Odili, a former pupil who is visiting the ministry, appears huge. But in the ‘eat-and-let-eat’ atmosphere, Odili’s idealism soon collides with his lusts – and the two men’s personal and political tauntings threaten to send their country into chaos. Published, prophetically, just days before Nigeria’s first attempted coup in 1966, A Man of the People is an essential part of his body of work dealing with modern African history.
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The Housemaid (African Writers Series)
A dead baby and bloodstained clothes are discovered near a small village. Everyone is ready to comment on the likely story behind the abandoned infant. The men have one opinion, the women another. As the story rapidly unfolds it becomes clear that seven different women played their part in the drama. All of them are caught in a web of superstition, ignorance, greed and corruption.
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The Boy In Love
In what could’ve been love or infatuation, his life rose and sunk from as early as 6 years old. His life from that point on was about who loved him and who he loved: to study, eat, dream, make friends, to excel.
Yes, why would he eat, study or excel at anything when he has had a broken heart or is deeply satisfied with an affection for a certain girl?
30 years on and looking at Rebecca now, he can finally and clearly tell what he felt then to now. He sees beyond feelings. He sees his capacity to provide for a woman; to understand them and care for them; to reason with them and plan a life worthwhile. And he sees it not in gruesome years of waiting (amidst the impatience) but just a decision away.
The joy to finally marry in love and with the loved was abounding. But his fear of the emotional turmoil of his past made him doubt his capacity to love and cherish this woman so.
Only if he had had patience…
Only if he had waited…
Only if he had talked to someone…
₵20.00The Boy In Love
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The Wizard of Asamang
In The Wizard of Asamang, Asare Konadu presents a lasting picture of Ghanian society in the rural area welded together by love, humored innocence and gaiety. The strange events and places in the hero’s young mind are recorded realistically combining inventive imagination with technical sills.
₵32.00The Wizard of Asamang
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A Woman in Her Prime (African Writers Series, AWS40)
A young woman makes that all-important rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. However, her early adult life is marred by childlessness in a society that places a great premium on children and motherhood as the ultimate mark of womanhood.
₵55.00