Among the Igbo, Chinua Achebe reminds us, proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. This is true of the Igbo as it is for most peoples across the African continent. In this revised and enlarged volume, Rev. Babila Fochang serves us with a generous blend of proverbs from all regions of the continent. With over 800 proverbs covering an exhaustive range of themes and topics, you won’t have to repeat a proverb for over two years.

A Wealth of Wisdom: A Reference Collection of African Proverbs

Politics & Social Sciences

Fochang, Babila

Social Sciences

Spears Media Press

When strangers invade her village in 1910, young princess Samarah's knowledge of English unwittingly contributes to her capture. Forced into a life of servitude on a plantation far removed from her homeland, Samarah struggles with losing the life and people she had known and loved. Her mother and Bintum - her childhood love who seeks and reunites with her at the plantation- offer a sense of the familiar until tragedy strikes leaving Samarah alone and angry. As the son of Samarah’s employer, Mayne Patterson represents all that has caused pain, misery and uncertainty in Samarah’s life. Mayne is in love with Samarah and will do everything he can to get her. Can Samarah overcome all the hurt and misgivings to see Mayne for who he is and not what he embodies? Torn between the love to whom she is betrothed and her growing attraction to Mayne, Samarah must decide between her heart’s desires and her obligations to her homeland. This debut historical fiction is at once a story of love and identity as it is a portrait of aspects of colonial rule in Africa.

Boundless

Literature & Fiction

Budji, Kefen

United States

This cookbook is a celebration of food and family inspired by the wonderfully diverse foods and delicious dishes that constitute West African cuisine. This collection of healthy African recipes is a hands-on introduction to some dishes from Cameroon - a country located in West Africa. Through the recipes we will not only take a culinary journey into West Africa, but delight in the celebration of food, family and wellness. The meals are simply described, the methods of preparation illustrated elaborately through pictures and the stories told as naturally as the food they describe. These meals encompass comfort meals, "foods on-the-go", popular street foods, salads and desserts. These distinctions are based on the ease/complexity of preparation, their portability as well as the heartiness that the food evokes. Accompanying each recipe is a guide to their nutritional contents and serving sizes.

A Taste of Africa: Fusion of Food, Wellness and Family

Nagella Nukuna

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

This book illuminates the complex and constantly shifting social and cultural dynamics that shape people's identity. Specifically, the volume focuses on the intersections of gender with, culture and identity, and at different historical epochs; on the way men and women define themselves and are defined by diverse peoples and cultures across time and space in sub-Saharan Africa. The discussions presented in this anthology primarily focus on 'being' as 'a state' or 'condition', defined by sex identity, and how this identity shifts, and hence 'becoming', assuming diverse meanings in disparate societies, contexts, and time. The discourse, therefore, moves from how the perception of the self in cultural and historical contexts has informed actions and at some other times shaped interpretations given to historical facts, to how changing economic realities also shape the definitions and constructions of social and relational issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. The historical trajectories of Islamic religion, colonialism and Christian missionary activities in sub-Saharan Africa have shaped the worlds of the peoples of the region and impacted on gender relations.

Being and Becoming: Gender, Culture and Shifting Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Ukpokolo, Chinyere

When Akuma—a youthful African government secondary school teacher—leaves his hometown and goes to the capital city, hardly does he know that he will be paralyzed and will not be able to use his legs again. The Journey’s End is a character-driven narrative that explores the lives of two men who meet in Yaoundé, the capital city—Lucas Wango (an elderly pensioner who comes to collect his back pay of seven years’ pension money) and Akuma (a physically challenged man who helps him recover his pension arrears). Wango doesn’t know that Akuma, aka Général, is a mobster and the boss of a city gang that commands and controls a better part of the metropolis. Running parallel to this central plot are two subplots that eventually converge at the end of the novel—Lucas Wango’s meddling in and eventual frustration with national political life and Général’s relationship with Martina, a woman he falls in love with in the city. Set in the rural African landscape of Yambe and Menamo (Akuma’s home village which he left to come to the city) and the urban backdrop of the rapidly populated city of Yaoundé, The Journey’s End epitomizes the predicament of Africa’s expanding slum-cities, characterized by poverty, corruption, and survival-driven individuality. For whom does the journey end – remains an absorbing question that animates every single page in this extraordinary urban adventure.

The Journey’s End

Mutia, Ba’bila

Democratic Governance and Political Participation in Nigeria 1999-2014 seeks to critically analyse Nigeria’s democratic experience since 1999 when the current Republic was instituted. Given the chequered democratic antecedents of the country, the book examines the factors responsible for the resilience of the present democratic dispensation, in spite of forces inhibiting democratic consolidation. It also examines these inhibiting forces and makes recommendations for overcoming them. Finally, the book seeks to stimulate intellectual discourse on Nigeria’s democracy and arouse greater research interests in the subject.

Democratic Governance and Political Participation in Nigeria 1999-2014

Omotoso, Femi

Politics & Government

This newly edited volume, Bali Nyonga Today covers about thirty years of (1985-2015) developments in Bali Nyonga, Cameroon. Already well-established as a city-state prior to German colonization in the 19th century, Bali Nyonga continues to adapt to national and global changes since its incorporation into the modern state of Cameroon. With fresh contributions from 12 leading scholars, this volume covers a wide variety of themes and issues including; geographical and historical updates on Chamba migration and settlement in its present homeland in Northwestern Cameroon, an in-depth description of Bali Nyonga cultural associations within the country and the Bali diaspora in the United States, the coexistence of traditional and modern religious worldviews, traditional medicinal practices and life-cycle rituals of significance. Of noteworthy are two chapters devoted to Mungaka, the language of the Balis and its revival in the context of new language policies and developments in African linguistics. Spiced with numerous photos, many of which have never been published, the book is a welcome addition to studies in contemporary African history, culture and society.

Bali Nyonga Today: Roots, Cultural Practices and Future Perspectives

Arts & Photography

Titanji, Vincent P. K.

History & Criticism

This book is a collection of essays on various aspects of contemporary African fiction and theater. The breadth and depth of the collection speak to the innovative trends in African fiction and theater in an increasingly interconnected world. Whereas the views of the authors are inherently diverse, common grounds are gleaned in the commonality of the patterns of artistic visions shaped and given impetus by the peoples’ new world realities; in this sense, the essays are at the same time in dialogue with each other. In the context of colonial and neo-colonial legacies that seem to forestall any sense of individual and collective self-fulfillment, contributors to this volume examine the pertinence of African fiction and theatre in imagining new vistas of re-conceptualizing the postcolonial condition in ways that re-galvanize the belief in an enabling future.

Re-writing Pasts, Imagining Futures: Critical Explorations of Contemporary African Fiction and Theater

Gomia, Victor N.

Literary

A Dictionary of Popular Bali Names is an extraordinary minefield of Chamba names meticulously assembled and expatiated for the modern user. This edition combines a short history of the Chamba people in Cameroon as well as detailed ethnographic description of the naming ritual among the Bali Chamba. John Fokwang¿s work stands in a class of its own and will serve as a reference material for all people of Chamba descent in Nigeria and Cameroon as well as for individuals who fancy the use of African names. This edition is a worthy contribution to the ethnography of the Cameroon Grassfields and indeed, the growing literature and interest on African names and languages.

A Dictionary of Popular Bali Names

History

Fokwang, John K.

Africa

Africa's Brain Power is a collection of editorial entries penned by AfricaOnline's Executive Editor between March 2016 and December 2017. The collection covers a variety of topics from abortion and alcoholism, HIV/AIDS, migration, sexual harassment, polygamy, STEM education, social media, bribery and corruption and many other exciting themes. Ideas expressed in the reflections aimed to provoke discussion on AfricaOnline's Sunday afternoon live broadcasts and draw heavily from the author's rich broadcast journalism experience. Readers will find the themes deeply thought-provoking and the variety of topics fascinating. This is a highly-recommended reference for Africans seeking home-grown solutions to their sociocultural and educational challenges.

Africa’s Brain Power: Reflections from AfricaOnline Broadcasts, Vol. 1

Nkemleke, Asonglefac

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