• SeedTime: Selected Poems I

    In memory of all the Ancestral Voices who prepared the field for our SeedTime…

    SeedTime I brings together Selected Poems from Kofi Anyidoho’s first five collections, beginning in reverse order with poems from AncestralLogic & CaribbeanBlues (1993), A Harvest of Our Dreams (1984), EarthChild (1985), Elegy for the Revolution (1978), and BrainSurgery (1985). BrainSurgery, the earliest of these collections, was never published as a collection until it came out together with EarthChild (Woeli Publishing Services, 1985), even though several of the poems had appeared in various journals, magazines and anthologies.

    SeedTime: Selected Poems I is a backward glance to those magical years of birth waters flowing across a landscape filled at once with danger and hope, with dying and rebirth in the mystery and miracle of new beginnings so soon after countless brushfires. But the doubt returns again so close behind the hope as we offer trembling prayers in new poems from an old loom: See What They’ve Done To Our SunRise. Yet, somehow, we must open our minds and souls to the Forever Promise of New SeedTimes. This world cannot, must not crumble under our watch.

    “Quintessential Anyidoho…a harvest of the master craftman’s gems across time and space. SeedTime brings a refreshing newness to old songs, and, for new ones, a touch of creative genius we have come to associate with the poet’s pedigree; a timeless legacy of a poet-laureate, whose voice waxes even stronger in his twilight years.” − Mawuli Adjei, author, poet and literary scholar

    “A collection of haunting poems in which we SEE the turbulent variety of our history, and HEAR the English language teased to express the many rhythms of the African’s eternal homesickness.” − Prof. A. N. Mensah, Department of English, University of 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.

  • 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.
  • The Right Treatment for the Right Disease

    Most people are confused about choosing between Alternative and Orthodox medicine. They are not certain about what to go in for: traditional medicine, herbal treatment, homeopathy, food supplements, divine (faith) healing or the doctor’s treatments (orthodox medicine). This book is written to clear these doubts and help you to make the right decision in those crucial moments in order not to be shortchanged. All the various options of healthcare available to you have been addressed in this material, and enough information has been provided to help you make the best of health choices towards living a healthy, long and satisfying life

  • Positive Health: Health Beyond Pills

    You don’t exist on earth with the main purpose of fighting disease or illness yet much focus of today’s health and healthcare is on how to take people out of negative health (disease and illness). Positive health however emphasises you as a healthy person with health assets for survival. In this book we discuss what those health assets are, that if you discover, cultivate or maintain you will ensure a healthy, happy and long life. In addition, we emphasise wellness as being spiritually, mentally, emotionally, socially and physically healthy, and we show you how to achieve this kind of holistic health.

  • What You Need to Know About Medical Checkup

    There are limitations of healthcare that fight our health and longevity. This is why everyone should have an ongoing relationship with health knowledge and healthcare through a health maintenance programme, whether sick or not, to avoid surprises. In this book, we discuss the commonest causes of hospital visits and death, and ways to prevent them. An example of an ideal evidence-based medical checkup guide for adults and children has also been included for use with your health provider. Some people believe that the main work of health professionals is to show up only when someone is sick or about to die. However, healthcare is a preventive practice largely, with the intention of preventing death ultimately. This book will challenge what you already know about preventive services or medical checkup.

  • A Silent Heritage: An Autobiography of Letitia E. Obeng

    Dr. Letitia Obeng has produced a fascinating and monumental piece of work; a tribute to scientific scholarship and the strength and ingenuity of Ghanaian womanhood.This is an autobiography of the first female science PhD in Ghana, It is an account of her unusual life experiences that must aspire the youth of today. This book is so engaging you will not be able to put this book down,

  • Parasites: The Sly and Sneaky Enemies Inside You (Hardcover)

    Watch Out!! Parasites, invaders from the human environment, ages and ages ago, penetrated the world inside human beings. Since then, they have lived inside generations of human beings of all ages, in all parts of the world. Sly and sneaky in their dealings with human beings and totally dishonorable, parasites use underhand methods to enter the human body.
    Aware of people’s natural inhibitions to parasites, PARASITES INSIDE YOU presents scientific information on parasites and their clever life cycles in an illustrated, non-technical, easy-to-understand style in order to emphasize simple precautions to take to avoid parasitic infections.
  • The Sickle Cell Disease Patient

    The work presented in this book is an attempt at a comprehensive statement of the natural history of the sickle cell disease patient and is based upon more than 1500 consecutive patients personally observed and followed up by the author for more than five years. Comments and discussions are, however, based on experience acquired from active supervision of a total of over 3,000 sickle cell disease patients in Ghana between 1965 and 1977, giving a rough experience value of close to 30,000 patient-years.

    Sickle cell disease is defined and the various genotypes and phenotypes comprising the disease are clarified. More than 70 years of actively expanding literature has been reviewed, including new information on the molecular pathology and pathophysiology of these haemoglobinopathies. The epidemiology of sickle cell disease, together with a catalogue of clinical features and complications, as witnessed by the author in Accra, have, with the aid of computers, been stated in quantitative terms.

    The work shows that sickle cell disease is a problem of great magnitude, deserving of national and international attention. An approach to treatment is given, with greater emphasis on patient management than is usual, paying attention to aggravating factors such as infections within poor socio-economic conditions and stressing the importance of genetic counselling and family planning for patients.

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