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IPods in Accra  (Piccadilly, 2009; 185) by Sophia Acheampong continues the story of young Makeeda as she searches for her root. In this story, Makeeda is a bit older, is studying to write her GCSE exams and (un)working on her relationship with Nelson. It has all the ingredients of a good chicklit and a YA. The love is not steamy but juvenile, like we all do. The questions that Makeeda has to find answers to are everyone's problem. Her relationship with Nelson isn't work; meanwhile she has found that there is something between her and her Maths home-tutor, Nick. Now, she must go through all the burdens of breaking up safely with Nelson and work her way into Nick's heart. As if this isn't complicated enough, Nick, himself, is now 'going-out' with an eye-popping belle. The situation is now tensed and her friends, with whom she would have shared her problems, are now also dealing with similar matters, some of them becoming distant as a result. If combinin...

The proportion of Ghanaian writers, both at home and in the diaspora, are incomparable to countries like Nigeria, whose authors have become household names, names we throw about in every literary discussion, names like Achebe, Soyinka, Okri, Chimamanda, Elechi Amadi, Buchi Emecheta and others. If there are few Ghanaians involved in the art of weaving words into novels, there are fewer - in fact, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand - whose writings are directed towards the youth or who dabble in the type of books commonly referred to as Young Adults. And I can count only one name: Nana Brew-Hammond whose Powder Necklace  was reviewed here. Today, another check-box has been ticked and a new name added. Sophia Acheampong's Growing Yams in London (Piccadilly Press, 2006; 220) is a Young Adult fiction about first and second generation Ghanaians in England working tirelessly to find a compromise between between the culture of their homeland and that of their adoptive ...