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Critical and Biographical Essays of Nana Dr. S.K.B. Asante: From an African Village to the Global Village and Back (Hardcover)
Few Ghanaians of any generation have had a career as long, as varied, and as consequential as Nana S.K.B. Asante’s: government attorney; law teacher; international public servant; constitution framer; adviser to sovereign parties; commercial arbitrator; public intellectual; traditional monarch. Just as impressive is the fact that, in each of these substantial roles, Nana has left a trail of writings. My own first encounter with Nana’s scholarship happened during my time at Yale Law School, his alma mater. As an editor on the law review, I was curious to know whether any Ghanaian had been published by the prestigious journal. My search led me to a fascinating article on Ghanaian property and customary law written by Samuel K.B. Asante in the 1965 volume of the journal. At the time of my discovery, his was the only article by a Ghanaian published in the 100-year history of the journal. I would later discover many more of his academic writings, some of which I assigned to my class in my years as a law teacher.
This book collects in one volume some of Nana’s mostly “non-academic” writings. The essays tell, in characteristically fine prose rich in biography and history, the story of an intellectual-technocrat keen to use his wealth of knowledge to address contemporary problems of development and to put that expertise in the service of his country–and of the developing world at large. The publication of this selection of Nana S.K.B. Asante’s writings, in the 90th year of his life, is a monumental accomplishment and a befitting capstone of a long and distinguished career.
PROF. H. KWASI PREMPEH
Executive Director of Ghana Center for Democratic DevelopmentThe incredibly rich collection of writings by the eminent international lawyer, scholar, respected global development expert and prominent traditional ruler, Nana S.K.B Asante, takes the reader on a remarkable journey of nearly seven decades of illumination. His vivid experiences, enormous achievements and witty recollections reveal the remarkable growth of a curious mind and a disciplined intellectual dedicated ultimately to the service of humanity from his native village to the global village. In characteristic modesty, Nana claims not to be a historian, but this book is a historical gold mine filled with nuggets of analysis on the evolution of education, law, science, social policy, public service, constitutional development, nation building and chieftaincy in Ghana, enriched with valuable insights into the solid contributions of illustrious men and women. His penetrating and critical analyses of international development cooperation in the fields of investments, energy, water and natural resources in Asia and Africa must be lessons for all developing countries. This rich resource book is highly recommended.
DR. AGNES AKOSUA AIDOO
Former Social Policy Adviser, UN Economic Commission for AfricaThis masterpiece by Nana SKB Asante which narrates his life journey from his hometown at Asokore to Achimota, academia, diplomacy and finally back home is unique, inspiring and educative. The Book covers a broad spectrum of academic disciplines including constitutional law, commercial law, criminal law, international law, chieftaincy, leadership and governance, sociology, history and religions. It provides a vivid account of the constitutional history of Ghana from the author’s personal knowledge. The author who had the singular honour to chair the Committee of Experts which gave birth to Ghana’s 1992 Constitution also held the positions of Solicitor-General and Deputy Attorney-General under different democratic and military governments. Nana SKB Asante has used simple diction to convey his wealth of knowledge, experience and wisdom, acquired from both local and international levels in different capacities to inculcate in his audience the spirit of patriotism. The book is a must read!
JUSTICE DENNIS DOMINIC ADJEI, FGA
Justice of The Court of Appeal₵500.00 -
Bookset: Not My Time to Die & Guns Over Kigali (2 books)
A pack of 2 books on the Kigali Genocide
About the Books
Not My Time to Die
“Reading Yolande Mukagasana’s book in French at the age of 15 changed my life.”- Gaël Faye
Originally published as La mort ne veut pas de moi in 1997, this book was the first survivor testimony to be published about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
In 1994 Yolande was an unconventional nurse and mother of three who enjoyed wearing jeans and designer glasses. She ran her own clinic in Nyamirambo and was planning a party for her wedding anniversary. But when genocide started everything changed. Targeted because she was a successful Tutsi woman, she was separated from her family and had to flee for her life.
Mukagasana’s gripping memoir describes the betrayal of friends and help that came from surprising places. Quick-witted and courageous, Yolande never lost hope she would find her children alive.
Translated from the French by Zoe Norridge.
Guns Over Kigali
The world has come to know about the carnage and human suffering in Rwanda through the reportage by newsmen. Guns Over Kigali is no such reportage. It is personal account of a UN peacekeeping soldier who was in the thick of the action to bring sanity into a country that had gone berserk.
Major General Anyidoho, the author of this book, survived the mayhem and the hectic moments in Rwanda and tells the world the true story of the events as he saw them. What is valuable in his account are the lessons he draws which have profound implications for UN peacekeeping around the world. Students in military institutions, researchers in war studies, politicians, policy makers, relief NGOs and the general reader interested in international relations will find this book a compelling and very useful reading.
In Rwanda the author was the Deputy Force Commander and Chief of Staff of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) where he collected the material for this book.
₵175.00 -
Letters to Nnaa Naama
Letters to Nnaa Naama is a collection of the author’s experiences, thoughts, feelings and expectations during a 10-month stay in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States of America. In these letters, she takes the reader on an imaginary journey, focusing on aspects of the USA she thinks Ghana could learn from in order to be a prosperous nation.
Nnaa Naama (Grandmother Naama) is the name of her maternal grandmother. The author uses her to represent the ordinary Ghanaian citizen. It is the hope of the author that this book will cause a transformation in the psyche of the Ghanaian, that the prosperity of this country lies in the hands of each and every Ghanaian citizen
₵50.00Letters to Nnaa Naama
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Special Book Launch Set: Autographed Hardcover of From Achinakrom to Pro-Vice Chancellor (plus paperback and Emancipation book)
This is a special launch set – limited – that includes an autographed copy of the hardcover of Prof Florence Dolphyne’s new autobiography, a paperback version of the autobiography and a copy of her best-selling book The Emancipation of Women: An African Perspective.
Blurb for the Autobiography
An autobiography serves the purpose of relating experiences of the writer. These are usually personal experiences and readers can draw inspiration from such experiences.
This is a book written by a renowned academician, but unlike many books written by academics, it reads like a story written by an accomplished novelist. It tells the story of a girl of very humble parentage who was able, by dint of hard work and divine providence, to make it to the very apex of academia. It is a book that tells the story of ‘Mmofraturo’, synonymous with the training of girls to influence their world before the advent of militant feminism. It is a story that gives another peep at the practice of racism in Europe.
But then, it is also the book that confirms the subtle discrimination that women are often subjected to in our education system, even at the highest level.
Moreover, it is a story that tells the history of the practice of education in Ghana over a number of decades. Then, the writer draws us into the age-old issue of family life, foster children, biological children, and the Ghanaian family set up.
From Achinakrom to Pro-Vice Chancellor is a book about friendship and love that tells the story of women, individually and in groups trying to help make others enjoy the life of work and leisure. Furthermore, this book gives a hint that speaking one’s first language can be the source of the survival of an individual in certain critical situations.
This inspiring story is also a personal history of Ghana from pre-independence by someone who has helped to shape Ghana’s education system, women’s rights during the UN Decade for Women, and human rights through Ghana’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It is a story of a phenomenal woman who has made Ghana and Achinakrom proud.
₵200.00 -
Ahafo & Bono Regions In Historical Perspective
In the centre of Ghana once straddled the Brong-Ahafo Region. It was noted for its beautiful geographical features as well as its rich natural and human resources. The maxim, unity in diversity, a cherished Ghanaian quintessential trait, was exemplified in the region by the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of multiple ethnic groups. On the eve of its Diamond Jubilee, the Region was split into three: Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions to promote the speedy development of the area.
This book gives a historical overview of the erstwhile region with respect to culture, its achievements and legacy. It also showcases the endowments of the new regions carved out of it. The contents are rich in information, data and photographs of historic people and events which historians, politicians, scholars, tourists, and people interested in issues concerning indigenous African societies and the general reader, will find to be invaluable.
“This book provides a succinct glimpse into the erstwhile Brong-Ahafo Region in terms of history, achievements and legacy and also showcases the resources of the three new regions created out of Brong-Ahafo. Through the pages of this book, we can always remember our past, our common history and ancestry, and thereby remain united although physically we will be in separate regions.” – From the Foreword
₵70.00 -
Quotes by NAD
Call it an anthology of quotes, poems, prose or common sense, Quotes by NAD is a potpourri of witty statements and thoughts of a citizen for citizens bold enough to face the truth.
The collection is a throwback of Nana Awere Damoah’s Facebook posts over the past years weighing on relevant issues that made the headlines and digested extensively nationwide.
₵65.00Quotes by NAD
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The Boy from Boadua: One African’s Journey of Hunger and Sacrifice in Pursuit of a Dream
*Available from 7 February 2023
Patrick Asare was born and raised by illiterate parents in the remote Ghanaian village of Boadua. His family was so large and impoverished that not even the earnings from crushing hard work could buy enough food to fill their bellies. No one in the village aspired to be educated beyond middle school.
Until Patrick.
Numerous obstacles stood in the way of Patrick’s yearning for higher knowledge, including gnawing hunger, lack of sleep, and backbreaking daily chores. During school vacations, he toiled in a jungle farm teeming with poisonous snakes and insects.
Dedicating every stolen moment to study, Patrick passed the common entrance exam with flying colors. Despite major setbacks, he kept his eye on the prize. He graduated from an elite secondary school and earned his engineering degree in the Soviet Union during the perestroika era. Finding his way to the United States, he taught Russian and math and eventually obtained a superb education from top American universities.
Patrick’s travels and adventures taught him that, regardless of his hardscrabble childhood, he was a lucky man. He was raised by loving and supportive parents and lived in a society where race was not an issue. Teaching in inner-city high schools alerted him to the particular challenges faced by America’s urban Black youth.
Patrick’s amazing story offers insights, hope, and inspiration to others who face astronomical odds.
₵180.00 -
Accra Aca Blɛoo: The History of the Accra Academy from James Town to Bubiashie (Hardcover)
Accra Aca Bleoo – the first comprehensive history book on the Accra Academy – captures nine decades of the school’s history, including the most epic events and pivotal moments. It takes the reader through the life journeys of the founders and those who believed in their dream to educate the underprivileged youth of the Gold Coast. It also recounts the aspirations and achievements of successive administrations of the school and how they overcame the challenges of their time and influenced the character of their students.
The book brings to light several unknown facts about the Accra Academy and examines the educational policies that have influenced its development and growth.
It is not only informative and educative but also entertaining, as it is interspersed with interesting stories and several pictures that will undoubtedly take the minds of alumni back to the good old days and give other readers a perspective into how life in the school has evolved.
This book is the outcome of many hours of personal interviews and research, and is intended for anyone interested in the history of education in Ghana and what has made the Accra Academy what it is today.
₵250.00 -
Inside Out: Autobiographical Memoirs
The author recounts a journey that starts in a small town in Ghana, through an academic and professional career in finance in Canada and the United States, culminating at the Ministry of Finance in Ghana where he served as Technical Advisor to three different Ministers of Finance from different political parties.
The memoirs depict the complexities of decision-making that combine technical know-how with political reality using several instances of policymaking and financial transactions that he led at the Ministry. For the technical reader, the author recounts a 25-year history of his involvement in many key initiatives of financial market development in Ghana.
The sweetener in Inside Out is an interesting case study of how to navigate political transitions and maintain relevance as a senior advisor to Ministers in a “winner-takes-all” political environment.
₵150.00 -
Art and the Power of Goodness: A Collection of John Agyekum Kufuor (Hardcover)
**Available from 16 June 2021
FOREWORD BY GORDON BROWN, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
There is a strong correlation between art and power and in this book, Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a cultural and literary historian, looks at it from the art collection of the former President of Ghana – John Agyekum Kufuor.
From a matrilineal household in Kumasi that is connected to the visual and palace art in the ancient imperial Kingdom of Ashanti, Kufuor travelled the world from Oxford into the pantheon of great personages and power. Along the way, whether in villages in Ethiopia or among the Maasai in Kenya, across the Maghreb into Morocco, infatuation with the Persia classical period, Ottoman or Asia Minor’s remains of modern day Turkey, northern Lebanon and parts of Greater Asia, some of these acquisitions came by way of gifts and purchases.
They reflect family life and belief, ancient trade relations and routes as well as patterns of contemporary geo-politics. It could be through Benin bronze sculpture with facial stratifications or of metal smelted Malian Islamic crusaders on horseback or a herdsman from a Sahel water well.
These works, seventy of which form the basis of this book with few external ones, include resistance art in the fashion of the ‘empire fights back’ against British West African colonial conflict engagements and resultant Independence.
₵200.00 -
Red Oak Heroes Series: The Big Six
Age Range: 10 – 14 years
When Mintaa and Oforiwaa approach Grandpa Kwame under the mango tree and ask him to tell them about the Big Six, the old man turns off his radio and takes them through events following World War II till the night when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah said “At long last, the battle has ended! And, thus, Ghana, our beloved country is free forever.”
Grandpa Kwame answers all their questions about the identity of the men who are famously known as The Big Six. He also tells them about the contribution each member of The Big Six made towards the fight for independence. Do you know that some of the men died in prison? Mintaa and Oforiwaa now understand why the pictures of these men are on most of Ghana’s currency notes.₵25.00 -
Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonisation
Revised, and with a new Author’s Note written in Conakry
Kwame Nkrumah, always in the vanguard of the African Revolution, has not only been at the centre of its political action, but has formulated its ideology. In this book he expresses his philosophical beliefs, relating them to the special problems of Africa, and states his case for scientific socialism as the essential and logical development from Africa’s socio-political heritage.₵570.00 -
Who Owns the Land and Who Rules the Land?
Ghana is undergoing her fourth experiment in Constitutional Rule − the 4th Republic. She was the first Black African country south of the Sahara to gain her political independence in 1957 but economic independence has eluded her till now. Her development is at a snail-pace at best.
According to the author, there are certain fundamental bottlenecks in the country’s governance system which make it difficult for her to realize her economic potential. The author compares Ghana’s governance system to Singapore which gained political independence around the same time as Ghana but has successfully transformed from Third World to First World economic status in 30 years and asks why the difference. The author calls for a national debate on the country’s governance system that will lead to a total review of the 1992 Constitution. The following are some of the key issues he calls the nation’s attention to:
- A Feudal Land Tenure System whereby more than 90% of the land mass of Ghana is vested in the Chieftaincy institution as Stool Lands and the remaining 10% vested in the President on behalf of the people of Ghana as Public Lands. A system which greatly impedes development and benefits only a privileged few and yet there are no Land Reforms
- The Legacy of the Colonial Indirect Rule leading to a “bifurcated state” in which traditional authority runs parallel to civilian political authority
- An Ineffective Decentralization System which excludes the traditional leaders and refuses to allow the people to elect their own District Chief Executives whom they can hold accountable
- An Adversarial Political System in which the two main political parties have indulged in violence since independence and thus refuse to reach consensus for national development
- The Short Tenure of the Executive and Legislature which does not promote long term planning and execution for meaningful development
- An expensive electoral system which engenders corruption and prevents well-meaning and qualified candidates from offering themselves for governance
- The Lack of a National Agenda for development and dependence on party manifestoes thus ignoring the Directive Principles of State Policy. Development is thus not progressive but disjointed and depends on which party is in power
- A Council of State which is merely advisory and has no power to serve as a check on the Executive
- A National Mindset of Dependency Syndrome and Entitlement Mentality which has resulted in lack of effective mobilization of the populace by the political and traditional leadership. A national psyche that does not promote self-reliance and the can-do spirit
- A Governance System which tries to copy Westminster and American systems instead of a home-grown system which suits our situation and promotes development
- An Educational System that fails to build problem-solving abilities and patriotism into the youth and fails to make them proud of being Africans
- A Very Strong Religious Atmosphere which feeds on superstition and does not enable the teeming members to transform their mindset and focus on teachings which promote hard work, wealth creation and prosperity
₵180.00 -
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 -
History of the Navy: A Case for a Credible Naval Force as an Instrument for National Development (Hardcover)
The History of the Navy: A Case for a Credible Naval force as an instrument for National development
₵200.00