Recommended Items
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Highlife Time 3
Highlife is Ghana’s most important modern home grown dance-music that has its roots in traditional music infused with outside influences coming from Europe and the Americas. Although the word ‘highlife’ was not coined until the 1920s, its origins can be traced back to the regimental brass bands, elite-dance orchestras and maritime guitar and accordion groups of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. Highlife is, therefore, one of Africa’s earliest popular music genres.
The book traces the origins of highlife music to the present – and include information on palmwine music, adaha brass bands, concert party guitar bands and dance bands, right up to off-shoots such as Afro-rock, Afrobeat, burger highlife, gospel highlife, hiphop highlife (i.e. hiplife) and contemporary highlife.
The book also includes chapters on the traditional background or roots of highlife, the entrance of women into the Ghanaian highlife profession and the biographies of numerous Ghanaian (and some Nigerian) highlife musicians, composers and producers. It also touches on the way highlife played a role in Ghana’s independence struggle and the country’s quest for a national – and indeed Pan-African – identity.The book also provides information on music styles that are related to highlife, or can be treated as cousins of highlife, such as the maringa of Sierra Leone, the early guitar styles of Liberia, the juju music of Nigeria the makossa of the Cameroon/ It also touches on the popular music of Ghana’s Francophone neighbours.
There is also a section on the Black Diasporic input into highlife, through to the impact of African American and Caribbean popular music styles like calypsos, jazz, soul, reggae, disco, hiphop and rap and dancehall. that have been integrated into the highlife fold. Thus, highlife has not only influenced other African countries but is also an important cultural bridge uniting the peoples of Africa and its Diaspora.
₵250.00Highlife Time 3
₵250.00 -
The Imported Ghanaian
With her rose tinted glasses firmly in place, the Imported Ghanaian deluded herself, believing that she could simply waltz into Kotoka International Airport with a grin like the winning ticket in the national lottery, and the band would strike up whilst the jubilant nation screamed, “Akwaaba-o, akwaaba, our sister has returned back to us.” She returned home thinking she was as Ghanaian as any other and that she would fit in snugly with the skills of a chameleon. The reality proved otherwise as she plunged headfirst into the endurance test of living in Ghana, where nothing is ever what it seems. Layer by layer, as if peeling an onion, each ‘coming back home’ cultural reality weaves her through a world where you can never be too sure, where an invitation is not exactly an invitation, where you have to die to find out how popular you are, and where being a Ghanaian and being Ghanaian are often two opposing concepts.
₵120.00The Imported Ghanaian
₵120.00 -
My First Coup d’Etat: Memories from the Lost Decades of Africa
My First Coup D’Etat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama (former President of Ghana) in Ghana during the dismal post-independence ‘lost decades’ of Africa. He was seven years old when rumours of a coup reached his boarding school in Accra. His father, a minister of state, was suddenly missing, then imprisoned for more than a year.
My First Coup D’Etat offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africa’s success story. This is a one-of-a-kind book: Mahama’s is a rare literary voice from a political leader, and his stories work on many levels – as fables, as history, as cultural and political analysis, and, of course, as the memoir of a young man who, unbeknownst to him or anyone else, would grow up to be vice president of his nation. Though non-fiction, these are stories that rise above their specific settings and transport the reader – much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Nadine Gordimer – into a world all their own, one which straddles a time lost and explores the universal human emotions of love, fear, faith, despair, loss, longing, and hope despite all else.
An important literary debut from the then Vice President of Ghana, a fable-like memoir that offers a shimmering microcosm of post-colonial Africa.
‘A much welcome work of immense relevance.’ ~ Chinua Achebe
₵150.00 -
Tickling the Ghanaian: Encounters with Contemporary Culture
A book on contemporary Ghanaian culture and heritage.
In this book, Kofi Akpabli seeks to unravel what at all tickles the Ghanaian. Is it Sunday afternoon’s after church Omo Tuo and beer, or when Ghana is ‘beating’ its arch-rivals in sports, Nigeria?
Articles in this book include the two that won him the CNN/Multichoice Journalist Award for Arts and Culture back to back in 2010 and 2011, becoming the first journalist, in the award’s history, to have won one category back to back: The Serious Business of Soup in Ghana and What is Right with Akpeteshie.
Following his usual humorous style of writing, Tickling the Ghanaian promises to be funny and educating. Kofi takes a different view of what we have perceived as always to be archaic. Kofi has eyes of details and tells his story the best way it could possibly be told.
₵150.00 -
A Sense of Savannah: Tales of a Friendly Walk through Northern Ghana
Caution: For fear of emitting loud, embarrassing laughs, do not read this book in public.
When Kofi Akpabli was posted to the northern border town of Paga to do his national service, he thought it was just going to be another ‘national suffering’. But when he encountered love at first sight with the landscape and the people, he was soon to realise that something close to destiny tied him to the place.
The author was welcomed to a world refreshingly different from the back streets of Accra and Cape Coast. He discovered the smell of dawadawa, the taste of pito and the mystery of border towns. Over a period of seven years, Kofi criss-crossed the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern Regions.
His real life adventures have been published in a cross-section of Ghanaian newspapers. By popular request, here comes A Sense of Savannah, a witty collection of travel tales that best express the character of Ghana’s savannah setting. While the entertaining narratives are guaranteed to interest a wide range of readers, what makes A Sense of Savannah worth reading is how the author generously dishes out well-researched facts and humour in equal measure.
As story after story shows, Kofi is always on the road:
– In Wa, he is ‘arrested’ and forced to drink beer without end on a Sunday morning
– In Bolgatanga, his well-shirted body gets sprayed with goat urine from the top of a bus
– In Tamale, during curfew hours and against the background of Wangara music, he spends the night on hard, cold asphalt
– And on a busy market day in Navrongo, he is told, ‘you have no conscience!’
Relax, grab a seat and let A Sense of Savannah drive you through the rather interesting northern half of Ghana.
₵120.00 -
I Speak of Ghana
It’s a rare person who can be both funny and wise at the same time. Yet that is exactly the way to describe Nana Awere Damoah’s writings in this small but compelling short story collection about contemporary life in Ghana. In it the reader will find Ghanaman in traffic, or Ghanawoman paying the corrupt policeman. Either way, one knows these are the words of a master story teller who handily blurs the lines between laughing so hard it makes one cry, or crying so hard it makes one laugh.
I Speak of Ghana is an honest journey of deft oration replete with the sounds (from the harmonious to the cacophonic), smells (including the pleasant and unpleasant), sights (from the eye-catching to the embarrassing), frustrations, triumphs and the mundane – everything that makes the Ghanaian experience finds its way into this book. Unlike the typical ranting about Ghanaian situations, Nana performs an insightful examination of the heart of the matter. Dissimilar to empty praise, Nana thoroughly embraces the issues that give us hope as people connected to Ghana. Narrated with humor, the book is Nana’s eloquence at its best.
₵60.00I Speak of Ghana
₵60.00
Best Seller Items
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I Speak of Ghana
It’s a rare person who can be both funny and wise at the same time. Yet that is exactly the way to describe Nana Awere Damoah’s writings in this small but compelling short story collection about contemporary life in Ghana. In it the reader will find Ghanaman in traffic, or Ghanawoman paying the corrupt policeman. Either way, one knows these are the words of a master story teller who handily blurs the lines between laughing so hard it makes one cry, or crying so hard it makes one laugh.
I Speak of Ghana is an honest journey of deft oration replete with the sounds (from the harmonious to the cacophonic), smells (including the pleasant and unpleasant), sights (from the eye-catching to the embarrassing), frustrations, triumphs and the mundane – everything that makes the Ghanaian experience finds its way into this book. Unlike the typical ranting about Ghanaian situations, Nana performs an insightful examination of the heart of the matter. Dissimilar to empty praise, Nana thoroughly embraces the issues that give us hope as people connected to Ghana. Narrated with humor, the book is Nana’s eloquence at its best.
₵60.00I Speak of Ghana
₵60.00 -
My First Coup d’Etat: Memories from the Lost Decades of Africa
My First Coup D’Etat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama (former President of Ghana) in Ghana during the dismal post-independence ‘lost decades’ of Africa. He was seven years old when rumours of a coup reached his boarding school in Accra. His father, a minister of state, was suddenly missing, then imprisoned for more than a year.
My First Coup D’Etat offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africa’s success story. This is a one-of-a-kind book: Mahama’s is a rare literary voice from a political leader, and his stories work on many levels – as fables, as history, as cultural and political analysis, and, of course, as the memoir of a young man who, unbeknownst to him or anyone else, would grow up to be vice president of his nation. Though non-fiction, these are stories that rise above their specific settings and transport the reader – much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Nadine Gordimer – into a world all their own, one which straddles a time lost and explores the universal human emotions of love, fear, faith, despair, loss, longing, and hope despite all else.
An important literary debut from the then Vice President of Ghana, a fable-like memoir that offers a shimmering microcosm of post-colonial Africa.
‘A much welcome work of immense relevance.’ ~ Chinua Achebe
₵150.00 -
Highlife Time 3
Highlife is Ghana’s most important modern home grown dance-music that has its roots in traditional music infused with outside influences coming from Europe and the Americas. Although the word ‘highlife’ was not coined until the 1920s, its origins can be traced back to the regimental brass bands, elite-dance orchestras and maritime guitar and accordion groups of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. Highlife is, therefore, one of Africa’s earliest popular music genres.
The book traces the origins of highlife music to the present – and include information on palmwine music, adaha brass bands, concert party guitar bands and dance bands, right up to off-shoots such as Afro-rock, Afrobeat, burger highlife, gospel highlife, hiphop highlife (i.e. hiplife) and contemporary highlife.
The book also includes chapters on the traditional background or roots of highlife, the entrance of women into the Ghanaian highlife profession and the biographies of numerous Ghanaian (and some Nigerian) highlife musicians, composers and producers. It also touches on the way highlife played a role in Ghana’s independence struggle and the country’s quest for a national – and indeed Pan-African – identity.The book also provides information on music styles that are related to highlife, or can be treated as cousins of highlife, such as the maringa of Sierra Leone, the early guitar styles of Liberia, the juju music of Nigeria the makossa of the Cameroon/ It also touches on the popular music of Ghana’s Francophone neighbours.
There is also a section on the Black Diasporic input into highlife, through to the impact of African American and Caribbean popular music styles like calypsos, jazz, soul, reggae, disco, hiphop and rap and dancehall. that have been integrated into the highlife fold. Thus, highlife has not only influenced other African countries but is also an important cultural bridge uniting the peoples of Africa and its Diaspora.
₵250.00Highlife Time 3
₵250.00 -
Sebiticals Chapter X
For eons, the character of the neglected wise observer has captured imaginations. Be they the community trickster, clown, gossip or drunkard, they have always been a thorn in the flesh of social miscreants. There is no one name for them, as they tend to be many things to many folks. Every society has their version. Audiences love them, hate them and love them again. These fellows have no allies. Their allegiance is to all. Their knife cuts both ways, as does their tongue. Oh, yeah. Ever the custodians of spicy, social secrets, they issue forth the most acidic insults. But, abuse them? Naaah, these characters are insult-proof!
In this salacious new collection, Nana Awere Damoah has consummated the essences of this conceptual character. More than that, the author has effected their relevance in the national body politic. In Sebiticals Chapter X, Wofa Kapokyikyi the social commentator entertains, informs and pricks the conscience – as does his anecdotal nephew.
Episode after episode, the reader cannot help but conclude that if there is a time the nation needs a voice of conscience, that time is not tomorrow. Bottomline? A Kapokyikyi is an institution that keeps the morals of society in check.
₵65.00Sebiticals Chapter X
₵65.00 -
Remnants of a Haunted Past: Forts and Castles of Ghana (Photo Book, Hardcover)
Yaw Pare is a celebrated Ghanaian photographer. This ground-breaking book richly illustrates the history and legacies of Ghana’s forts and castles through photography. In the same way that the forts and castles themselves bear witness to the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, so too do these photographs provide compelling material and visual testimonies, offering possibilities for understanding that words do not.
In this book, the photographer’s camera captures a reality that many choose to remember but just as many choose to forget. Ultimately, Remnants of a Haunted Past: Forts and Castles of Ghana constitutes an attempt to document the past so that it is never forgotten in the present.
₵1,250.00 – ₵1,450.00Remnants of a Haunted Past: Forts and Castles of Ghana (Photo Book, Hardcover)
₵1,250.00 – ₵1,450.00 -
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.
₵110.00Abrokyire Nkomo
₵110.00
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Adaku at the Homowo Festival
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
Twelve year old Adaku lives in Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Her father is always telling his children stories about their tribe, the Gas. He believes that a person must know his roots.
During the school vacation, Adaku travels to the Greater Accra Region to spend the holidays with her grandparents in a large fishing village near Accra.
She arrives just before the Homowo festival of the Ga people, and is plunged into various strange and interesting activities.
Join Adaku as she learns about the history of her people and the Homowo festival.
₵25.00Adaku at the Homowo Festival
₵25.00 -
Aleke Mahe Vinyee? (Ewe)
Aleke Mahe Vinyee? (How Do I Train My Child?) deals with the various aspects of child education and training.
₵25.00Aleke Mahe Vinyee? (Ewe)
₵25.00 -
Mia Denyigba (Ewe)
Mia Denyigba (Our Homeland) describes in general the size and physical features of the strip of territory known as Eweland. This stretches along the Gulf of Guinea mainly from the eastern bank of River Volta in Ghana to the eastern boundary of Dahomey. It discusses also some customs and occupations of the people.
₵25.00Mia Denyigba (Ewe)
₵25.00 -
Tour of Duty: Journeys Around Nigeria
In March 2009 travel writer Pelu Awofeso laced his boots and set out on a solo trip across Nigeria; he christened the mission the ‘Beautiful Underbelly’ project, a brave attempt to re-discover his home country, which is more known abroad as the breeding ground for scam-artists than for its friendly and hospitable citizens. With just a backpack and a camera, Awofeso crisscrossed 18 states in eight months, wandering the capital cities and chatting up total strangers, all so that he can learn something new from the locals.After three months and eight capital cities, he already clocked over 6000 kilometres, a distance his movement tracker dopplr.com describes as being the equivalent of “one percent of the distance to the moon”. This volume is a record of a slice of Nigeria and Nigerians as seen through the eyes of a Nigerian writer with an abiding love for everyday people
.₵45.00 -
Justice Denied
This book was written soon after the suspects of the murder of the Ya-Na were arrested.
The author followed the unveiling accounts of the murder of the Ya-Na,the commitment and indictment proceedings at the Magistrate Court.He also followed the trial of the accused persons at the High Court.
The search for Justice for the Ya-Na became a judicial drama and a political football instead.Some key players in the search exhibited palpable incompetence and nonchalance while others showed unpardonable bias in the performance of their judicial and legal duties. In resistance to the search for justice all kinds of novel and spurious legal arguments were raised ,including the issue of when does a confession have effect in law even if it is freely given?
“Another spurious legal issue raised was the fact of the Ya-Na’s death .In recognition of his service to his nation and traumatic murder, the Republic of Ghana gave Naa Yakubu II a state burial on 10th April,2016. Yet in order to deny him justice and to make the law seem to be an ass,the fact of his death and identity of his body became issues in the trail of persons accused of murdering him.This kept the ordinary Ghanaian wondering where the implementers of the law were taking the country.In the end the Ya-Na was denied Justice”.
₵50.00Justice Denied
₵50.00 -
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Around Ghana: Mmo Ne Yɔ Otumfuo Osei Tutu II (Souvenir Issue, 1999)
A collector’s item. A souvenir issue of the popular Around Ghana Magazine, to commemorate the installation of the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II. Published in 1999. With some memorable pictures of Barima Kwaku Dua (before and when he became Asantehene) and key Asante relics and symbols.
Contents
Front piece
The Making of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II
The Life and Times of Barima Kwaku Dua
A Bird’s Eye View of Modern Asante
₵30.00 -
A Dinner Date with the Mad Duck
Can a conversation make the difference between a life gone one way and not another? It can when it’s an extraordinary series of discussions between people who are open to clearly looking at their lives and how to take them to the deepest levels, no matter the hardships.A Dinner Date with The Mad Duck is the record of an intense, probing and ultimately life-transforming conversation between two people over an extended period of time.₵35.00 -
Hardly Working: A Travel Memoir of Sorts
“Zukiswa has mastered the art of writing a travel memoir. Through engaging prose she takes you on a journey — which she seamlessly intertwines with her innocent childhood memories — through Africa, Europe and then back to Africa. Even better she is doing part of the trip with her family which is unchartered territory: an African family exploring their own continent by public transport for adventure’s sake. What a way to bond.” — Sihle Khumalo, author of Almost Sleeping My Way to Timbuktu, Heart of Africa and the best-selling Dark Continent, My Black Arse
Ten years after her first book was published, Zukiswa Wanner leaves her Nairobi home on an adventure-filled road trip with her partner and son. Travelling by road to the southern most country in Africa, she gets stranded in a border town in Malawi; finds herself in the midst of a protest against bond notes in Zimbabwe that shows her that Mugabe isn’t the force that he once was. And while dealing with immigration officials from Uganda to Ukraine, she learns what it means to carry an African passport. Wanner deals with the politics of the nations she considers home as well as the politics of literary festivals and writing with the same touch of humour that has been her signature since her first book — The Madams.
₵100.00 -
Reflections in a Ring of Light
In this fascinating collection of memories, dreams, musings and all that a creative mind can conjure, Nana Dadzie Ghansah takes the reader on a very descriptive journey across time.
Nana writes across generations and zigzags us across the world from Ghana to Paris, France to Lexington, Kentucky, to Leipzig, Germany and more.
Whether we meet him sweeping his grandfather’s compound to perfection, admiring nature in the village of Besease, being a doctor in Lexington or in his trusted 1989 VW Golf, there is an energizing outburst of thought and a simultaneously sober reflection on the past, present, and future through multiple lenses.
If you’re looking to go on a thought-provoking and yet humorous journey that leaves your mind enriched, then this collection is a great pick.
₵70.00 -
St. Augustine’s College: Conquering With Perseverance – Our Past, Our Present And Our Future
The 724-page book is the first-ever reference book by any college in Ghana. It serves as both a history book on everything one needs to know about the St. Augustine’s College and serves as both an encyclopaedia as well as almanac that compiles in detail, every single one of the over 400 parishes, out-stations and individuals that contributed towards the establishment of the College. It also traces the history of the Gold Coast Catholic as the root of Catholic Education, contribution of the Catholic Church to Ghana’s Education Sector, the establishment of St. Augustine’s College initially as a Teacher Training College in Amisano and subsequent construction and transfer of the College to Cape Coast with a Secondary Department. In all the narration, the authors bring out the undercurrents that led to the clamour of the Gold Coast Catholic faithful to have their own Secondary School and the frustrations that the Catholic Church hierarchy had to endure to have the College established.
The book gives a background to the naming of the College after the foremost Christian Theologian of African descent and how that dove-tailed into the philosophy, unique identity and character of the College’s products. Detailed highlights are given on major roles played by the Society of African Missions and the Congregation of Holy Cross in the holistic development of the College’s students. The College’s scholarship, excellence in sports and role as a citadel of the arts are well explained in the book with an impressive roll-call of outstanding alumni across various sectors as an emphasis to the role of the College within the context of national development. The very essence of campus life, management and curriculum is brought to the fore through reminiscence by APSUnians across its nine decades of existence. The various narrations are interlaced with interviews, discussions with College Management, academic staff and alumni dating as far back as the 1950s.
The book also does a comprehensive listing of every college alumnus from 1933 when the very first graduates left college till 2017 by their programmes offered and provides 65 coloured pages of very historic privileged pictures some dating as far back as 1930s. The role of the past students’ union (APSU) as one of the most critical stakeholders in the development of the College is clearly established all through the book which closes with prospects on the establishment of an endowment fund to secure the gains made over the decades.
Whether an APSUnian, Augusco parent, Catholic faithful, a historian or researcher, one will require a copy of this historic document to fully appreciate the work of the missionaries in the development of education in Ghana, role of the Catholic Church in the establishment of schools in Ghana among others.
The book is printed on quality paper and stitched hard-bound with dust jacket.
₵130.00 -
Open and Closed: A Book of Opposites from Ghana
Age Range: 2 – 5 years
Learn the opposites whilst celebrating everyday life in Ghana, West Africa.
₵36.00 -
Mumaizu and the Hippos
Age Range: 5 – 7 years
Mumaizu lives in Wechiau, a village in the Upper West Region of Ghana. His father, Agba Tungbani, is the head tour guide for the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary. One day, Agba surprises Mumaizu with an invitation to see the hippos.
The Sanctuary, established in 1998, protects approximately 20 hippos along a 40-kilometre stretch of the Black Volta River.
₵30.00Mumaizu and the Hippos
₵30.00 -
Lagos: City of the Imagination – Hardcover
“I don’t think you can be in Lagos without becoming aware of its potency; when Lagos gets itself organised it will be extremely powerful; and already – without organisation – it is very powerful.” Rem Koolhaas, 2002
Lagos is fast becoming a global city – a place people visit for curiosity and the vibe as much as for business or family. The mesmerising energy and intensity of the city have to be experienced to be understood. But what is the story of Lagos? When did the city begin? Who were the first inhabitants? When did it become the city of iniquity and wisdom that continues to confound all who encounters it? Who have been the key chroniclers of this real yet imaginary city?
Veteran journalist and writer Kaye Whiteman has given us a gem that answers these questions and more. Lagos: City of the Imagination explains the origins of Lagos as both outpost of the Benin Empire and also the city run by the White Cap Chiefs. Whiteman shows that Lagos was always multicultural and cosmopolitan, with the Portuguese and later educated returnees from Sierra Leone and artisans from Brazil adding to the eclectic mix.
The book examines the key moments in the history of Lagos: from the concerted attack by the British in the 1860s, Independence in 1960, the 1966 coup through to FESTAC and the assassination of Murtala Muhammed. Also included are vivid character portraits of some of the most powerful Lagosians in history, from Oba Kosoko and Madam Tinubu, to well-regarded colonial figures such as Sir Bernard Bourdillon and those – like Lord Lugard – not so fondly remembered.
As the name suggests, Lagos: City of the Imagination deals extensively in those for whom Lagos is the backdrop of their work, from highlife musicians and Fela Kuti to Wole Soyinka and, more recently, the American-Nigerian writer Teju Cole.
Lagos: City of the Imagination is an absorbing and delightful “must-read” for anyone with an interest in one of the most dramatic cities of the 21st century.
₵90.00
