Celebrating a new generation of Ghanaian Authors (Part One)

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Nana Kwabena Owusu in This & That

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New Generation of Authors I love the way one story leads to another story. Researching the Caine Prize and its two previous Ghanaian nominees to do the story on it, I stumbled upon other new generation Ghanaian writers and authors. I must admit that I am not a strong African or Ghanaian literature reader and in fact in recent times, the number of books I read in general has decreased. Most of the new authors I discovered were mainly through blogs and websites by African literature enthusiasts.

The first of these was a blog post from AccraBooksandThings, a blog by Nina Chacu (Head Librarian, Ashesi) celebrating two Ghanaian writers making the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize regional shortlist. Ayesha Harruna Attah for Harmattan rain and Nii Ayikwei Parkes for Tail of the blue bird.

Harmattan Rain

Harmattan Rain follows three generations of women as they cope with family, love and life. A few years before Ghana’s independence, Lizzie-Achiaa’s lover disappears. Intent on finding him, she runs away from home. Akua Afriyie, Lizzie-Achiaa’s first daughter, strikes out on her own as a single parent in a country rocked by successive coups. Her daughter, Sugri grows up overprotected. She leaves home for university in New York, where she learns that sometimes one can have too much freedom. In the end, the secrets parents keep from their children eventually catch up with them.

You can read an excerpt and reviews of Harmattan Rain on the authors website and also additional writing and articles she has done for various websites and magazines. Cavalier Literary Couture, a website and magazine founded by emerging writers in New York City and Washington D.C, has a very good interview with Ayesha on their website.

Ayesha Harruna Attah was born in Accra, Ghana and is a fellow of Per Ankh Publishers and TrustAfrica. She was educated at Mount Holyoke College and Columbia University and is currently pursuing her creative writing MFA at NYU.

Social: Connect with Ayesha

Buy: Silverbird Lifestyle Shop (Accra Mall)

Tail of the Blue Bird

Sonokrom, a village in the Ghanaian hinterland, has not changed for thousands of years. Here, the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and walk alongside the spirits of their ancestors. The discovery of sinister remains – possibly human, definitely ‘evil’ – and the disappearance of a local man brings the intrusion of the city in the form of Kayo; a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries.

As events in the village become more and more incomprehensible, Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba, find that Western logic and political bureaucracy are no longer equal to the task in hand. Strange boys wandering in the forest, ghostly music in the night and a flock of birds that come from far away to fill a desolate hut with discarded feathers take the newcomers into a world where, in the unknown, they discover a higher truth that leaves scientific explanations far behind.

You can read an excerpt and reviews of Tail of the Blue Bird on the Telegraph, Independent and Amazon UK. There is an interesting mini-blog consisting of one post where Nii provides a glossary of words for foreign readers. What makes it interesting is how he prefaces the glossary.

I made a conscious decision while writing Tail of the Blue Bird that I wasn’t going to make an extra effort to find equivalent English words for things I only knew in Ghanaian languages e.g. prekese, which is used for flavouring food. But I also chose to use native words where I felt they served the situation better – AND not to add a glossary because after all, when I was growing up in Ghana, no one placed a glossary at the end of any of the books I read to explain what finches (for example) were.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes also has a new book to be published in April 2011, South of South, an anthology with trans-national migration and exploring the world that contemporary migrants negotiate as its theme.

Half-profile portrait by Ken Attoh

Nii Ayikwei Parkes writes poetry, prose and articles. Former Poet-In-Residence at the Poetry Café, he is the author of three poetry chapbooks; eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999) and M is for Madrigal (2004) and the self-published shorter (2005), which is a vehicle to raise money for a writers’ fund in Ghana. Nii also co-edited the groundbreaking Tell Tales Volume I short story anthology with Courttia Newland and regularly edits x magazine.

Social: Connect with Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Buy: EPP Bookshops

Circles

Circles is the cleverly woven tale of Rabbie, a tormented young woman caught in a cycle of disastrous choices, searching for love and validation. Despite the driven accomplished exterior Rabbie projects, she is plagued by demons from her past. For the last 15 years, Rabbie has made one bad misguided decision after the other. And even as her career blossoms, her personal life is in shambles.

Now earlier when I stated that my African literature consumption is poor, I could have redeemed myself immediately by stating that a third of the books I read over the last half of 2010 was African literature, one out of three. Circles by Bogyewaa Glover was the one out of three. I enjoyed it enough to finish it within my normal two days for a good book.

Reviews of Circles can be found on Amazon and on the authors’ website. Her website also has short stories, poems and mini-series written by her, interspersed with reviews on music, arts and movies and the occasional interview . There is also

Boakyewaa Glover posted on February 13 on her website that her book is being adapted for TV by eTV Ghana which is fantastic!! It makes me nostalgic about Things we do for Love, which if my memory serves me right was adapted from radio to TV and did well. We wish her the best of luck!!

Boakyewaa Glover is a Ghanaian born Organizational Psychologist living and working as a Consultant in Atlanta, USA. After completing senior high school, worked as a TV Presenter/Journalist for Metro TV’s hit show, Smash TV.

After graduating from the University of Ghana she expanded her media role by joining TV3 as a Newscaster/Broadcast Journalist. Boakyewaa was a familiar face on TV3 for two years before leaving to pursue a graduate degree in Psychology at NYU.

Social: Connect with Boakyewaa Glover

Buy: Silverbird Lifestyle, Kingdom, Readwide, GIMPA, Holiday Inn Gift Store, Shell (Airport,37, Spintex, Dzorwulu)

Huge Thanks to Nana Fredua-Agyeman for helping me out with some bookshops that stock these titles.

Tags: arts, authors, ayesha haruna attah, boakyewaa glover, ghana, lifestyle-feat, lifestyle_featured, nii ayikewi parkes, writers