• 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.
  • Swahili-English 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.
  • Celebrated: Nigerian Women in Development

    Celebrated profiles 29 contemporary Nigerian women who, through their own initiatives, are playing laudable roles in our society. They include lawyer and civil liberties activist Ayo Obe, fashion designer Deola Sagoe, and businesswoman Nike Ogunlesi. These women speak in Celebrated about their experiences, challenges and successes.

    The problems relating to the social worth of a woman, her ability to contribute to social development, the political, economic and social roles she is allowed to play, her pains and travails are issues that haunt all societies. These problems usually arise from the way society sees the woman and the way the woman sees herself. Perhaps because of these problems, despite the past achievements of Nigerian women, the number of prominent contemporary Nigerian women remains negligible compared to that of men.

    Ayona Aguele-Trimnell profiles here a few contemporary Nigerian women who, through their own initiatives, are playing laudable roles in society and yet remain largely uncelebrated. Women like Doctors Okonjo-Iweala, Obiageli Ezekwesili and Professor Dora Akunyili to name a few, who have performed as well as any, and better than most of their male contemporaries and predecessors. This is the sense in which this book become important.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

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