• Nii Noi the Sanitation Officer

    Age Range: 6 – 15 years

    This book is a thought-provoking piece of a fairly peaceful community that wakes up to the incessant complaints of 13-year-old Nii Noi. Like the dawn of teenage, he becomes, somewhat, shocked by the deplorable sanitary conditions in his neighbourhood.

    Fuming at the apathy of everyone around him towards better sanitation practice, Nii Noi becomes a crusader for hygienic living. But as a prophet without honour in his community, it takes the tragedy of a flood to get the community to appreciate the crusade by Nii, and what he desires to achieve: a hygienic, clean and joyful community. The writer, through the voice and eyes of a boy, reveals the innocent naivety and obvious apathy of society, and the power of camaraderie and community to cause change.

  • Africa: Poverty in the Midst of Plenty

    This book posits that human beings are the most deceitful, dissimulator and complex creatures on earth. It is a critique of human behaviour, especially the African, and how he/she may be held responsible for his/her own under-development.

    The book also contains some analysis on the West African socio -politico-economic realities to enable us to appraise the sources of imbalance in development between the North and the South and the fact that Africans cannot continue to blame colonialism and neo-colonialism for the uneven development. The solution is at our own doorstep.

    The narratives are done independently but, put together, it is a labyrinth of the nature of the African and Africa. A must read for policy-makers, diplomats and students of Africa political economy.

  • 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.

  • 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.
  • Say It in Swahili

    Contains over 1,000 useful sentences and phrases for travel or everyday living abroad: food, shopping, medical aid, courtesy, hotels, travel, and other situations. Gives the English phrase, the foreign equivalent, and a transliteration that can be read right off. Also includes many supplementary lists, signs, and aids. All words are indexed.
  • 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.

  • Conversations About Race: Humanity Chats

    This book is for all of us.
    Introductory yet meaningful, civil, and non-political conversations about our humanity.

    Conversations about Race is a follow-up to the race-related conversations on the Humanity Chats podcast.
    May these conversations help us broaden our lens.

    The Human Oath

    We are humans
    Descendants of one species
    Connected in ways we cannot comprehend

    We are humans
    From all around the world
    One kind only
    And that is humankind

    – The Shimmigrant, 2019

  • Who am I? Exploring the Concepts of Gender and Identity from the Frafra Perspective

    In a world where many seem unsure of who they are, the concepts of gender and identity are prime for discussion. Yet through my years of study of the subject of identity, I have come to realise the definition of identity is so vague it can pass for whatever you wish it to be. If anything, it has become more difficult for people to define themselves, making it look as though the customary (re)sources for and of identity formation are no longer as direct or straightforward as before, particularly in the face of globalisation and modernisation, or identity has become self mutating. So, I ask, how can we easily describe who we are and more importantly, how can we defend that understanding?

    Perhaps a cultural perspective to the concepts could offer more insights. In this book, I adopt a culturally contextual framework of description to gender and identity as it relates to the Frafras of Northern Ghana.

     

     

  • 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.

  • Move To Ghana: 10 Practical Ways To Relocate To Ghana

    This book is for anyone in the diaspora considering or planning to make the move to Ghana now or in the nearest future.

    This book offers 10 practical, tried and tested ways you can consider to enable you to take action to begin to live out your dreams. It provides key insights, tips and action points you need to implement in order to succeed.

    The book will help the reader to clarify your thoughts, identify opportunities around you and encourage you to start preparing for your journey back home, whether to live or to invest.

  • Akan Kasadwini (Akan Oral Literature)

    The book is a pioneering work of Akan oral literature written in the Akan language. It gives a theoretical view of oral literature and a detailed account of the major genres of oral literature in Akan. It deals with an introduction to literature and some aspects of stylistics. It ushers students of literature into some of the crucial issues of literature. The book deals with what literature is, and what it can afford to individuals and the society as a whole. It considers literature as an indispensable aspect of any society’s life. It also identifies the main characteristics of literature with specific reference to oral literature.

    The book treats some of the major terms in literature and supports them with examples. The book has 25 chapters and each chapter addresses, performance, composition, structure, functions and literary devices. Each chapter ends with sample questions that will help students to revise what they have learned from the chapter.

    The book is in response to the needs of students at the WASSCE, Diploma and Degree levels to the subject matter of oral literature in Akan. This book will also help Training College students both in their course work at college and also in their teaching.

  • 60 Second LifeClass: Become as you Think!

    Available on 14th October, 2024

    Why this book?
    In today’s fast paced world, there can be a tendency to neglect one of the most important aspects of our lives; making time to think and shape our mindsets. This book is a practical mindset-change tool, one in the Mindset Revolution [MR] mini-series. It is targeted at anyone who desires to live their best life through conscious thinking. In here you will find fifty life lessons, one for each week of the year with a two-week break of your choice. The lessons deal with the following themes; fear, love, forgiveness, belief, law of sowing and reaping of thoughts and the power in declaring ‘I Am’. The lessons are short and to the point but their effects are long-lasting and enduring.

    Why LifeClass?
    To be successful in any profession, we accept that you must receive the requisite training. Typically, the more technically challenging the profession, the more the number of years training one needs to receive. Somehow, we neglect the greatest profession of all which is Life. This has resulted in most of us existing instead of living. We operate as though our lives are happening to us rather than responding to us.

    Why 60 second?
    We now live in a world of busyness and this I believe is the ploy by which the ego keeps us from true fulfilment. Whilst this needs to change, it is unrealistic to expect that change to happen overnight. This mini-manual is meant to ensure that in spite of the busyness, we will be able to ‘fit’ in daily ‘snacks of conscious thinking’. It is my sincere belief that the addiction to these snacks will soon inspire you to have full ‘meals of conscious thinking’.

  • Women Marrying Women in Northern Ghana: Wading into the Homosexuality Debate from a Ghanaian Perspective

    When the late Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, vehemently insisted that homosexuality is un-African, many scholars and commenters from around the world disagreed with him and went on to cite many cultural practices in certain African societies signifying the presence or traces of homosexual activities in African societies. Among many of these cultural practices often cited is the practice of women marrying women as evidence of female homosexual traits and, therefore evidence of homosexuality embedded in certain cultures in Africa.

    The Frafras of the Upper East Region of Ghana are a prominent ethnic group that practice this cultural arrangement. Delving into the the practice from the Frafra context, the books documents the practice of women to women marriage and its relationship or otherwise with homosexuality, with an explanation for the strong resistance of Ghana to homosexuality

     

  • 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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