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The African Predicament: Collected Essays
This collection of Kofi Awoonor’s writings comprises essays written over a period of three decades, and includes several previously unpublished pieces. According to the author himself: ‘[they] reflect a life-time of engagement in literature and politics, my two passions…’
Kofi Awoonor addresses a diverse range of subjects from an African perspective: the slave trade, post-independence history, globalisation, and the fate of the African continent given the twin scourges of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Literary criticism considers the legacy of W.E.B DuBois, and in a contemporary context, Kofi Anyidoho’s poetry. Further essays are reflections composed during the author’s long sojourns in the US: on Negro, Afro-American, black, African-American and African and identities. Further essays cover historical and political topics, such as the overthrow of Nkrumah, and the UN in relation to Africa in the post-Cold War period.
₵60.00 -
The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems, 1964-2013
“Valuable for its vivid attempts to make new, locally rooted forms.”—Publishers Weekly
“A celebration of the work of one of our important world poets for readers both inside and outside Africa.”—From the foreword by Kwame Dawes“We pay homage to Kofi Awoonor as a poet not only with a profound vision and articulation of the world, our world, but also with a gift of words that is at home in poetry, in prose, in critical literary studies, and equally in major essays about our African, our human condition.”—From the introduction by Kofi Anyidoho
Kofi Awoonor, one of Ghana’s most accomplished poets, had for almost half a century committed himself to teaching, political engagement, and the literary arts. The one constant that guided and shaped his many occupations and roles in life was poetry. The Promise of Hope is a beautifully edited collection of some of Awoonor’s most arresting work spanning almost fifty years.
A beautifully edited collection of poems spanning almost 50 years (1964-2013) of the author’s poetry, the Promise of Hope includes some of Kofi Awoonor’s arresting work. Selected and edited by Kofi Anyidoho, himself a poet and academic in Ghana, the book contains much of Awoonor’s last unpublished poetry, along with many of his anthologized and classic poems. The Promise of Hope was in its final stages in 2013 when at the time of the author’s tragic passing in Nairobi’s West Gate Mall terrorist attack. Published posthumously the following year, this engaging volume serves as a fitting contribution to the University of Nebraska Press’ inaugural cohort of books in the African Poetry Book Series.
₵250.00