• The Gonjon Pin and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2014

    The Caine Prize for African Writing 2014 brings together the five shortlisted authors’ stories along with 12 other stories from the best new writers. Insightful, arresting and entertaining – this collection reflects the richness and range of current African writing.

    Caine Prize 2014 Shortlisted Stories:
    Phosphorescence Diane Awerbuck (South Africa)
    Chicken Efemia Chela (Ghana/Zambia)
    The Intervention Tendai Huchu (Zimbabwe)
    The Gorilla’s Apprentice Billy Kahora (Kenya)
    My Father’s Head Okwiri Oduor (Nigeria)

    The Caine Prize African Writers’ Workshop Stories 2014:
    The Lifebloom Gift Abdul Adan (Somalia/Kenya)
    The Gonjon Pin Martin Egblewogbe (Ghana)
    As A Wolf Sweating Your Mother’s Body Clifton Gachagua (Kenya)
    Pam Pam Lawrence Hoba (Zimbabwe)
    Lily in the Moonlight Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Nigeria)
    Running Elnathan John (Nigeria)
    The Murder of Ernestine Masilo Violet Masilo (Zimbabwe)
    All the Parts of Mi Isabella Matambanadzo (Zimbabwe)
    Blood Work Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende (Zimbabwe)
    The Sonneteer Philani A Nyoni (Zimbabwe)
    Eko Hotel Chinelo Okparanta (Nigeria)
    Music from a Farther Room Bryony Rheam (Zimbabwe)
  • 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.

  • Between Sisters

    When sixteen-year-old Gloria fails thirteen out of fifteen subjects on her final exams, her future looks bleak indeed. Her family’s resources are meager so the entire family is thrilled when a distant relative, Christine, offers to move Gloria north to Kumasi to look after her toddler son, Sam. In exchange, after two years, Christine will pay for Gloria to go to dressmaking school.

    Life in Kumasi is more grand than anything Gloria has ever experienced. She joins a youth band at church — something that allows her to pursue her great love, singing — and Christine has even promised to teach her to read.

    But Kumasi is also full of temptations — the owner of a popular clothing shop encourages her to buy clothes on credit, and the smooth-talking Dr. Kusi offers Gloria rides in his red sports car. Eventually Gloria is betrayed by the people around her and is disillusioned by her new life. But in the end she decides who she can trust, and draws her own considerable inner resources to put the bad experiences behind her.

    Between Sisters

    28.00
  • Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (African Writers Series)

    This anthology introduces the African literature of incarceration to the general reader, the scholar, the activist and the student. The visions and prison cries of the few African nationalists imprisoned by colonialists, who later became leaders of their independent dictatorships and in turn imprisoned their own writers and other radicals, are brought into sharper focus, thereby critically exposing the ironies of varied generations of the efforts of freedom fighters.

    Extracts of prose, poetry and plays are grouped into themes such as arrest, interrogation, torture, survival, release and truth and reconciliation.

    Contributors include: Kunle Ajibade, Obafemi Awolowo, Steve Biko, Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis Brutus, Nawal El Saadawi, M J Kariuki, Kenneth Kaunda, Caesarina Kona Makhoere, Nelson Mandela, Emma Mashinini, Felix Mnthali, Augustino Nato, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kwame Nkrumah, Abe Sachs, Ken Saro Wiwa, Wole Soyinka, and Koigi wa Wamwere.

    Although an often harrowing indictment of the history, culture and politics of the African continent and the societies from which this literature comes, the anthology presents excellent prose, poetry and drama, which stands up in its own right as serious literature to be cherished, read and studied.

  • The Trouble with Nigeria (African Writers Series)

    The eminent African novelist and critic, here addresses Nigeria’s problems, aiming to challenge the resignation of Nigerians and inspire them to reject old habits which inhibit Nigeria from becoming a modern and attractive country. In this famous book now reprinted, he professes that the only trouble with Nigeria is the failure of leadership, because with good leaders Nigeria could resolve its inherent problems such as tribalism; lack of patriotism; social injustice and the cult of mediocrity; indiscipline; and corruption.

  • Can We Talk And Other Stories (African Writers Series)

    Shimmer Chinodya, winner of the 1989 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa region) is one of Zimbabwe’s foremost fiction writers. This collection of short stories reveals his development as a writer of passionate questioning integrity.

    The first stories, ‘Hoffman Street’ and ‘The Man who Hanged Himself’ capture the bewildered innocence of a child’s view of the adult world, where behaviour is often puzzling and contradictory; stories such as ‘Going to See Mr B.V.’ provide the transition between the world of the adult and that of the child where the latter is required to act for himself in a situation where illusions founder on a narrow reality. ‘Among the Dead’ and ‘Brothers and Sisters’ look wryly at the self-conscious, self-centred, desperately serious world of young adulthood while ‘Playing your Cards’, ‘The Waterfall’, ‘Strays’ and ‘Bramson’ introduce characters for whom ambition, disillusion, and disappointment jostle for attention in a world where differences of class, culture, race and morality come to the fore. Finally, in ‘Can we Talk’ we conclude with an abrasive, lucid, sinewy voice which explores the nature of estrangement. The charge is desolation. Can we Talk and Other Stories speaks of the unspoken and unsaid. The child who watches but does not understand, the young man who observes but cannot participate, the man who stands outside not sure where his desires and ambitions lead, the older man, estranged by his own choices. ‘Can we Talk’ is not a question but a statement that insists on being heard, and demands a reassessment of our dreams.

  • The Hard Decision

    *Available from 25 March 2022
    After waiting for many years, Papa Koto and Mma Asibi finally have a child. They are determined to make him a more useful person. How they choose to do it may make them end up stepping on toes. Will they go ahead with their plans?

    “A delicious read, a read-worthy first book, The Hard Decision by Jean-Philip Lawson is yet another evidence of the rejuvenation of literature in our homeland.” Nana Awere Damoah, Author & Engineer

  • Abrokyire Nkomo

    For many Africans, the dream of travelling to Europe or America represents a burning lifetime ambition that they would do anything (well, almost) to achieve. So what is it really like out there? What is the story behind the rosy images of the west that are beamed to Africa on television, in movies and in the glossy magazines? What is the reality behind the grim stories we hear at times from our friends and relatives abroad? Just how hard, or easy, is it out there? This book is a collection of a number of articles written by the author and seeks to address these issues. Written in a conversational style, it is an attempt to provide an interesting, witty, yet serious insight into the good, the bad and the ugly sides of life abroad, and raises several issues that should engage the attention of the contemporary African whether at home or abroad.

    Abrokyire Nkomo

    110.00
  • Ghana Praise: Tunes from Ghana, Africa and the World

    African churches have inherited a rich tradition of hymnody from the West, but for too long the musical heritage of Asia and even of Africa itself has been neglected. Ghana Praise is a first step towards correcting this situation.

    It contains 144 tunes by Ghanaian composers: 4 songs from Northern Ghana and 28 spirituals from Ghana’s Pentecostal churches. For the first time, the wealth of music by present and past generations of Ghanaian musicians is available in print for all to use; the geographical and denominational barriers which have discouraged the spread of hymn tunes in the past are breaking down.

    In addition, Ghana Praise brings you 19 tunes from the rest of Africa and 33 from other parts of the world.

    Ghana Praise is accompanied by a words book, Asempa Hymns, which contains words to fit the new tunes, as well as a selection of the most well-known Western hymns.

  • Asempa Hymns (Words)

    Asempa is the Twi word meaning “Good News”. Here is an English language hymn book with a difference. It not only includes 200 of the most popular British, German and American hymns, but it also brings together a similar number of compositions from Africa, Asia, and the rest of the world.

    Produced in Ghana, Asempa Hymns contains some 90 items from that country including 28 “Ghana spirituals” traditionally sung by the Pentecostals but now gaining popularity in all churches. In many of these, there is a distinctive Ghanaian flavour, which this book and the companion music collection Ghana Praise make available for the first time to Christians in other lands.

    The Western tradition of hymnody has served Africa well for many years, but the rich traditions of other countries have failed to spread, held up by barriers of language, denomination and communication. The appearance of Asempa Hymns, with its wide choice of hymns, from nearly all the continents, will help brothers and sisters in Christ in many lands to realise a new fellowship in song and will shorten the distances that divide us.

  • Letters To My Future Wife

    The content of this book is not different from the title. It is a collection of letters – letters to Serwaa. They are intriguing love letters from a young man to a young woman with whom he intends to spend the rest of his life. She is his wife-to-be, but certain issues must be settled before they take the irrevocable oath.

    The topics are on serious issues that can bind or break relationships. The letters are mainly the products of the writer’s creative mind. Some are triggered by real life situations. But the reader will find it difficult to distinguish between the two. The reason is not difficult to find. A reader who has been in a relationship or marriage can identify with almost every situation in those letters.

    Manasseh uses the simple and conversational tone to convey deep messages. He has not failed to spice them with witty African proverbs that give readers the mature flavour that must accompany the thought-provoking pieces. Those who are still battling with what to look out for in a lasting relationship will find a helpful guide in this book. It will be of help to the man whose mother still decides how he should relate with his future wife. The lady who is yet to discover that good boyfriends do not often make good husbands will find useful lessons in Letters to My Future Wife. The couple whose marriage is yet to be blessed with a child will find something comforting in this book. And those who find pleasure in reading for relaxation will find this book therapeutic.

  • Sister Nommo the Saviour

    Age Range: 6 – 8 years

    Paa Nao wanted his wife to give him a baby boy who would become a lawyer, doctor or an engineer. Nommo was the first child, though Maa Kuu later had boys. Paa Nao educated the boys but not Nommo his daughter, insisting that a girl’s place is in the kitchen. When disaster struck and Maa Kuu’s life was at stake, it was Nommo who, through her cleverness, saves her mother from death at the hands of a strange little man, after her professionally trained brothers have failed.
  • No Sweetness Here and Other Stories (African Writers Series)

    In this collection, Ama Aita Aidoo explores postcolonial life in Ghana with her characteristic honesty and humor. Tradition wrestles with new urban influences as Africans try to sort out their identity in a changing culture. True to the tradition of African storytelling, the characters come to life through their distinct voices and speech. If there is no sweetness, there is the salt essential to life, even if it comes from tears, and the strength that comes from a history of endurance.

  • A Squatter’s Tale (African Writers Series)

    Young financier Obi enjoys life in the fast lane in 1990’s Lagos. He walks tall in designer suits with his girlfriend at his side enjoying the envy of those with empty purses.

    When his finance company collapses Obi’s decadent lifestyle comes to an abrupt end and he is forced to flee to the United States. There he has to live on the margins of society. Obi wants money, he wants a woman, and he wants to live the good life.

    This face-paced novel, by turns comic and moving, reveals what success and failure mean for the young Nigerian at home and in exile. Ike Oguine explores the alienation experienced by today’s economic refugees under the cover of light-hearted comedy.

  • Arrows of Rain (African Writers Series)

    This debut novel from the author of the powerful, universally acclaimed Foreign Gods, Inc. looks at a woman’s drowning and the ensuing investigation in an emerging African nation.

    In the country of Madia (based in part on Ndibe’s native Nigeria) a young prostitute runs into the sea and drowns. The last man who spoke to her, the “madman” Bukuru, is asked to account for her last moments. When his testimony implicates the Madian armed forces, Bukuru is arrested and charged with her death. At the first day of trial, Bukuru, acting as his own attorney, counters these charges with allegations of his own, speaking not only of government complicity in a series of violent assaults and killings, but telling the court that the president of Madia himself is guilty of rape and murder. The incident is hushed up, and Bukuru is sent back to prison, where he will likely meet his end. But a young journalist manages to visit him, and together they journey through decades of history that illuminate Bukuru’s life, and that of the entire nation.

    A brave and powerful work of fiction, Arrows of Rain is a brilliant dramatization of the complex factors behind the near-collapse of a nation from one of the most exciting novelists writing today.

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