Additions to my Library

It's been a long time since I went into a bookshop. However, thanks to the Writers Project of Ghana's monthly book reading titled Ghana Voices Series, I have purchased two autographed novels from the June and July readings.

The first book I purchased was Ama: the Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Manu Herbstein. Manu Herbstein is a South African who has lived and worked in several countries including India, Nigeria and Ghana, but has been living in Ghana for sometime now. His novel won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize Award for Best First Book. From GoodReads:

Thrust into a foreign land, passed from owner to owner, stripped of her identity. This is the life of Nandzi, who was given the name Ama, a name strange to her and her tribal culture. A life of struggle and resignation, bondage and freedom, passion and indifference, intense love and remorseless hate. Though forced into desperation, Ama never lets her soul be consumed by fear. While the stories of individual slaves have been blurred into one mass, Ama's story personifies the experience of eighteenth-century Africans in an unforgettable way. Her entrancing story of defiance and spiritual fire starts from the day she is brutally seized, raped, and enslaved, and ends with her breathing the pure air of freedom. AMA is a deeply engrossing and colorful novel, packed with violence, sex, and action. The resiliency of her spirit will grip readers from the first page to the last of Manu Herbstein's spellbinding novel.

The next book I purchased was the one read by Fiona Leonard titled The Chicken Thief. Fiona is an Australian living in Ghana. She's worked with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and has spent some time travelling around the world and writing speeches, ministerial briefings, reports and press releases. From the book's cover:

Alois is The Chicken Thief, an intelligent young man struggling to find his way in a southern African country wracked by political unrest and a crumbling economy. A chance encounter gives Alois the opportunity to make some fast money, and hopefully improve his future. However, his assignment goes horribly wrong, and he unexpectedly finds himself in the midst of a complicated and perilous struggle to rescue a war hero and transform the political landscape. Though something of an unlikely hero, Alois ultimately learns that both dreams and justice are within his grasp.