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IF I HAD A SON (stories of manhood to...
The book is a realistic conversation between a father and his son. It beautifully handles a man’s identity, success, family, relationship, marriage, happiness, conflict, faith, self-belief and other values. A walk from pre birth to retirement.
If I had a son (stories of manhood to our sons), adopts an authentic African story telling approach in a friendly language giving it a voice of its own. It is intended to communicate to each reader in a personal way, bringing back memories of sitting round the fireplace listening to grandmothers narrate stories of old times.
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
Brief Summary
Afi Tekple is a young seamstress whose life is narrowing rapidly. She lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother, spending much of her time in her uncle Pious’s house with his many wives and children. Then one day she is offered a life-changing opportunity—a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn’t truly know.
She acquiesces, but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. He sends a stand-in to his own wedding, and only weeks after Afi is married and installed in a plush apartment in the capital city of Accra does she meet her new husband. It turns out that he is in love with another woman, whom his family disapproves of; Afi is supposed to win him back on their behalf. But it is Accra that eventually wins Afi’s heart and gives her a life of independence that she never could have imagined for herself.
A brilliant scholar and a fierce advocate for women’s rights, author Peace Adzo Medie infuses her debut novel with intelligence and humor. For readers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Candice Carty-Williams, His Only Wife is the story of an indomitable and relatable heroine that illuminates what it means to be a woman in a rapidly changing world.
Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Ad...
Notes on Grief is an exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's beloved father’s death in the summer of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, and kept Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure.
Expanding on her original New Yorker piece, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving this year; about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it. With signature precision of language, and glittering, devastating detail on the page--and never without touches of rich, honest humor--Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father’s death with threads of his life story, from his remarkable survival during the Biafran war, through a long career as a statistics professor, into the days of the pandemic in which he’d stay connected with his children and grandchildren over video chat from the family home in Abba, Nigeria.
In the compact format of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, Adichie delivers a gem of a book--a book that fundamentally connects us to one another as it probes one of the most universal human experiences. Notes on Grief is a book for this moment—a work readers will treasure and share now more than ever--and yet will prove durable and timeless, an indispensable addition to Adichie's canon.
I Accuse the Press: An Insider’...
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them.
Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.
God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane S...
Brief Summary
In 1947 the workers on the Dakar-Niger Railway came out on strike. Throughout this novel, written from the workers' perspective, the community social tensions emerge, and increase as the strike lengthens
Ousmane Sembène envinces the color, passion, and tragedy of those formative years in the history of West Africa.
What We’re Told Not to Talk About (Bu...
Brief Summary
14 countries, 42 women, each with a story no one has heard before.
What do you do when you're living on the streets and on your period? What does it feel like to have a poo after you've given birth? How do we learn to love our bodies again after they've been abused? And, how do you know if you've ever really orgasmed? We all have questions about our bodies but often women's voices are silenced for being impolite or improper
What We're Told Not To Talk About (But We're Going To Anyway) is an important, taboo-breaking book that gives voice to the experiences of women from all walks of life, whose stories might not ordinarily be heard. Alongside Nimko's story of living with FGM, rebuilding her relationship with her own body and being a woman her own way, these are the true stories of real women who are sharing the experiences they've always been told should be secret and shameful.
The book is a call to arms for all women to reclaim the narrative around their bodies and to refuse to bow to the taboos which keep us silent. There is no such thing as oversharing.
'A beautiful book with such a wide range of uplifting but often heart-breaking stories. Made us cry and think in equal measure' - Pandora Sykes, co-host of The High Low
How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company.
Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations to the villagers are made—and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle would last for decades and come at a steep price.
Told through the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold onto its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.
Lagos Noir by Chris Abani
Brief Summary
West Africa enters the Noir Series arena, meticulously edited by one of Nigeria’s best-known authors.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.
Brand-new stories by: Chris Abani, Nnedi Okorafor, E.C. Osondu, Jude Dibia, Chika Unigwe, A. Igoni Barrett, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Adebola Rayo, Onyinye Ihezukwu, Uche Okonkwo, Wale Lawal, ‘Pemi Aguda, and Leye Adenle.
The Smart Money Woman by Arese Ugwu
Meet Zuri. She’s living a fabulous life. Great car, gorgeous apartment, well paid job.
Meet Zuri. Broken down car, an apartment she cant afford, a job she’s about to lose.
What’s a broke girl to do?
With her best friends Tami (the flighty fashion designer), Lara (the tough oil and gas executive), Adesuwa (the conservative lawyer), and Ladun (the fabulous housewife), Zuri grows a little, learns a lot and navigates her way to making better financial decisions and building wealth.
This book tackles, debt, spending, the consumerist culture of the African middle class, the fear and misconceptions surrounding money and the lack of it, love, friendships, cultural and societal pressures and the roles they play in success. With each chapter comes a Smart Money Lesson, there to help you work your way up the financial ladder.
Love in Color by Bolu Babalola
Love in Colour: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold.
A high-born Nigerian goddess, who has been beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover, longs to be truly seen.
A young businesswoman attempts a great leap in her company, and an even greater one in her love life.
A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether she should uphold her family’s politics or be true to her heart.
In her debut collection, internationally acclaimed writer Bolu Babalola retells the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology with incredible new detail and vivacity. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from long-erased places.
With an eye towards decolonizing tropes inherent in our favorite tales of love, Babalola has created captivating stories that traverse across perspectives, continents, and genres. Love in color book club questions
God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane S...
Brief Summary
In 1947 the workers on the Dakar-Niger Railway came out on strike. Throughout this novel, written from the workers' perspective, the community social tensions emerge, and increase as the strike lengthens
Ousmane Sembène envinces the color, passion, and tragedy of those formative years in the history of West Africa.
A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Wo...
Brief Summary
In A Moonless, Starless Sky Okeowo weaves together four narratives that form a powerful tapestry of modern Africa: a young couple, kidnap victims of Joseph Kony's LRA; a Mauritanian waging a lonely campaign against modern-day slavery; a women's basketball team flourishing amid war-torn Somalia; and a vigilante who takes up arms against the extremist group Boko Haram.
This debut book by one of America's most acclaimed young journalists illuminates the inner lives of ordinary people doing the extraordinary--lives that are too often hidden, underreported, or ignored by the rest of the world.
We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Z...
'You can't stop birds from flying, can you, Sameer? They go where they will...'
1960s UGANDA. Hasan struggles to keep his family business afloat following the sudden death of his wife. As he begins to put his shattered life back together piece by piece, a new regime seizes power, and a wave of rising prejudice threatens to sweep away everything he has built.
Present-day LONDON. Sameer, a young high-flying lawyer, senses an emptiness in what he thought was the life of his dreams. Called back to his family home by an unexpected tragedy, Sameer begins to find the missing pieces of himself not in his future plans, but in a heritage he never knew.
Moving between two continents over a troubled century, We Are All Birds of Uganda is an immensely resonant novel that explores racial tensions, generational divides and what it means to belong.
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.
But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity--and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.
Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki--near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.
Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she's ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be--not even Deka herself.
Not yet Uhuru by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga
Not Yet Uhuru gives a vivid and authoritative account of the history of Kenya. In this autobiography, the author counters the Imperial British propaganda machine to distort the history of a nation. From the perspective of a man who was at the centre of the liberation struggle and the making of a new nation, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga deconstructs the fallacious and sloppy historical narratives peddled by propagandists, which are deliberately tailored to vilify the true national heroes and exalt villains.
In this seminal literary work, Jaramogi lets his betrayal by Jomo Kenyatta off his chest. He lays bare his frustration with Kenyatta’s turn against fellow Kapenguria six members such as Bildad Kaggia into his primary casualties and enemies. Jaramogi accuses Kenyatta of becoming an Imperial Master stooge and thus justifies his decision to break ranks with the Kenyatta regime. In light of the nationalism spirit, vision, and mission, Jaramogi considered Kenyatta’s change of heart an unforgivable grand betrayal. Not Yet Uhuru is not an ordinary autobiography.
It is Jaramogi’s historical gift to Kenyans, Africa in general, and historians the world over. This book is filled with prophetic anecdotes and laden with premonitions, which can stir us from our self-induced political stupor. Not Yet Uhuru demystifies the Kenyatta and Odinga families’ political feud, which has played out for over five decades. This book will help you understand why the sons of the two founding fathers of Kenyan continue to strive to outwit each other in the political arena.
The Sultans Spymaster Peera Dewjee of...
The Sultan's Spymaster tells the story of Peera Dewjee, an Ismaili merchant who crossed from India to Zanzibar as a boy. Later he became Sultan Barghash's barber and valet, where he became a confidant to the Sultan and a trusted advisor.
Peera Dewjee acted behind the scenes during momentous events in the history of Zanzibar and East Africa - the closing of the slave markets and imperial expansion by Germany and Great Britain.
The Sultan's Spymaster displays 16 pages of rare photographs from Zanzibar as well as numerous old line drawings in the text of the book itself.
Chasing the Rain: An Africans Quest f...
Brief Summary
Richard Lyth: Oxford graduate, missionary, commando, Frontier Agent, linguist, District Commissioner, Anglican bishop. Lyth lived an epic life much of it spent in the remote southeastern Sudan. During World War 2 he served as Frontier Agent on the Boma Plateau, part of the traditional homeland of the Murle people. There he met a young Murle man named Lado, the subject of this book. The two men became lifelong friends. Over time Lado told Lyth the story of his difficult and extraordinary life. Lyth lived for many years among the Murle people, studying their culture and language. He penned an early edition of this book in 1945, drawing upon his knowledge of the setting and customs of the intriguing Murle culture and integrating them with Lado s personal story. This book follows the life of a man named Lado.
He was born in Sudan approximately 1920. He grew up living the traditional life of his Murle people- herding the goats, planting sorghum and hunting antelope with a spear. But Lado was different. Even as a young boy he wondered about the world around him. As he grew older he was increasingly confused by the different manifestations of the tribal god named Tammu. As a teenager he was captured in a raid and taken away as a slave.
He was later adopted into the tribe that enslaved him. Under these conditions his questions about suffering and God became more intense. He was rescued by British troops and learned Arabic under the protection of the District Commissioner. Eventually he returned to his home at Boma as the official translator for the military. It was here that Lado met Kemerbong (Richard Lyth). A meeting that changed the rest of his life.
Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham
Brief Summary
Following the fate of one family over the course of two decades in Nigeria, this debut novel tells the story of each sibling’s search for agency, love, and meaning in a society rife with hypocrisy but also endless life
“I like the idea of a god who knows what it’s like to be a twin. To have no memory of ever being alone.”
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, becomes drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth.
Soon Bibike and Ariyike’s father wagers the family home on a “sure bet” that evaporates like smoke. As their parents’ marriage collapses in the aftermath of this gamble, the twin sisters and their two younger siblings, Andrew and Peter, are thrust into the reluctant care of their traditional Yoruba grandmother. Inseparable while they had their parents to care for them, the twins’ paths diverge once the household shatters. Each girl is left to locate, guard, and hone her own fragile source of power.
Written with astonishing intimacy and wry attention to the fickleness of fate, Tola Rotimi Abraham’s Black Sunday takes us into the chaotic heart of family life, tracing a line from the euphoria of kinship to the devastation of estrangement. In the process, it joyfully tells a tale of grace and connection in the midst of daily oppression and the constant incursions of an unremitting patriarchy. This is a novel about two young women slowly finding, over twenty years, in a place rife with hypocrisy but also endless life and love, their own distinct methods of resistance and paths to independence.
Manifest Now by Idil Ahmed
Brief Summary
Manifest Now provides a step-by-step guide with tools, techniques, and proven strategies to raise your frequency and create the reality you want. This book is designed to guide you through the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of manifesting and creating all that your heart desires. You'll learn how to start removing mental and emotional blocks so you can rediscover that manifesting is your natural birthright. You'll feel more confident, reconnected, and powerful as you turn every page. Everything in your life will begin to shift as you begin to realize that you are a conscious creator.
What's Inside?
The Inner Love Flow: A reminder of your deepest most innate connection to the Source that provides you unconditional love. The Inner Love Flow will help you remember that it all starts with you and that you are never alone. You are divinely guided and connected at all times. The flow of love is constantly pouring into you and this wisdom will free you from every needing to play any games to lower your frequency. You'll activate your divine love, which will raise your frequency to create a healthier relationship with yourself and others. You will feel so full of The Inner Love Flow, that all you'll want to do is give unconditional love without ever seeking or trying so hard to receive it back.
This section will also teach you how to heal your heart from any past pains, form a deeper connection with your partner and even manifest a new relationship. Once you love yourself, the universe begins to open up for you and starts to work in your favor. Manifest Now Technique: A speed manifestation technique that you'll apply on daily basis to get magnificent results. You'll set intentions, follow particular instructions, and stay focused. You'll start to manifest right away. Things will start to shift in your favor. You'll start to notice that you're happier, excited, and more connected with your inner self. This technique is meant to help you open your heart and mind so that you can elevate pass all the noise that's distracting you from your real potential. Once you use the Manifest Now Technique, you will realize how powerful you are and never again will you doubt what lies within you. Release It: 10 powerful techniques you can use on a daily basis to release any mental, physical, or emotional blocks that hinder your manifesting powers.
Think It: 35 powerful thoughts to keep you energized, focused, and excited to manifest.
Affirm It: 100 affirmations that will help you start speaking, feeling, and commanding greatness, abundance, happiness, and financial freedom into your life right now.
Magnetic Money Mindset: Tools that help you discover your purpose, tap into your creative genius, do what you love, and attract financial freedom along the way.
Begin your journey and watch magical things unfold in your life.