Finally,
a book out of Ghana that’s eliciting the kind of excitement usually reserved
for Nigerian writers! I’m so looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of
John Dramani Mahama’s new collection of autobiographical essays, My First Coup d’Etat:And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa. Published by
Bloomsbury in July, the book is said to tell Ghana’s post-colonial history through
the prism of Dramani’s life and experience using traditional African
storytelling techniques in the form of fables.
With a
foreword by Chinua Achebe, My First Coup
d’Etat will hopefully become a welcome addition to the African literary
cannon. My one reservation is not about the book itself. It’s about the fact
that Ghana still has yet to bring forward a young literary voice to stand next
to the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and others who are writing about the
African conditions now as opposed to fifty years ago. I fear that our culture
of deference to our elders may play a part in stifling this voice but I
continue to live in hope that Ghana will produce a new literary talent of world
renown.
In the
meantime, read the blurb below for a taste of what’s to come from Dramani
Mahama:
Book Description
Publication Date: July 3, 2012
My First Coup d’Etat chronicles the
coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama in Ghana during the dismal post-independence
"lost decades" of Africa. He was seven years old when rumors of a
coup reached his boarding school in Accra. His father, a minister of state, was
suddenly missing, then imprisoned for more than a year.
My First Coup d’Etat offers a look at the
country that has long been considered Africa’s success story. This is a
one-of-a-kind book: Mahama’s is a rare literary voice from a political leader,
and his personal stories work on many levels—as fables, as history, as cultural
and political analyses, and, of course, as the memoir of a young man who,
unbeknownst to him or anyone else, would grow up to be vice president of his
nation. Though nonfiction, these are stories that rise above their specific
settings and transport the reader—much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis
Singer and Nadine Gordimer—into a world all their own, one which straddles a
time lost and explores the universal human emotions of love, fear, faith,
despair, loss, longing, and hope despite all else.
Review
"With crisp yet sweeping
prose, John Mahama’s memoir, My First Coup d’Etat, provides
insights into Ghana’s, and by extension, Africa’s struggle to weather its
historical burden and engage with a world much removed from her dilemma.
Without sentimentality or condescension, he exposes homegrown African
pathologies and helps us understand several contradictions of our postcolonial
condition. His is a much welcome work of immense relevance to African
studies and deserves serious critical attention." —Chinua Achebe
"These stories reminded me
of Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose memories of a vanished world feel half like
memoir and half like fairy tale. Readers will be charmed by them. They brim
with humanity." —Andrew Solomon, author of the National Book
Award–winning The Noonday Demon
"Mahama’s stories lure the
reader into an unforgettable journey in which he interacts with history as a
living tissue. The characters and the episodes are part of the everyday but one
imbued with magic and suggestive power that go beyond the concrete and the
palpable to hint at history in motion." —Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, author of Weep
Not, Child
"Warm and engaging. The view
of a complex world in microcosm." —Aminatta Forna, author of the
Commonwealth Book Prize–winning The Memory of Love
"In fluid, unpretentious
style, Mahama unspools Ghana’s recent history via entertaining and enlightening
personal anecdotes."—Publishers Weekly
"Sensitive, honest
autobiographical essays… A wonderfully intimate look at the convulsive changes,
and deep scarring, in post-colonial Africa."—Kirkus Reviews
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