Mandela the Spear and Other Poems


Book Description

The strength of Mandela the Spear and other Poems lies in Okai's burning desire to celebrate the black experience and culture, through the iconic figures who symbolize those struggles and triumphs. Thus, not surprisingly, one encounters names like Mandela, Nadine Gordimer, Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, to name a few. Okai has long established himself as one of the towering figures in the field of modern African poetry in English. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of a vigorous reinvention of the poetic genre that revolutionized the poet/audience relationship, changed the mode of expression from scriptography to narratology, and the role of the audience from that of passive reception to active participation.




Mandela the Spear and Other Poems


Book Description

The strength of Mandela the Spear and other Poems lies in Okais burning desire to celebrate the black experience and culture, through the iconic figures who symbolize those struggles and triumphs. Thus, not surprisingly, one encounters names like Mandela, Nadine Gordimer, Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, to name a few. Okai has long established himself as one of the towering figures in the field of modern African poetry in English. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of a vigorous reinvention of the poetic genre that revolutionized the poet/audience relationship, changed the mode of expression from scriptography to narratology, and the role of the audience from that of passive reception to active participation.




Fertile Crossings


Book Description

In retracing some of the routes followed by West African literature in English over the course of the last three decades, this book employs an original multidimensional approach whereby the three main genres - narrative, poetry and drama - are considered in the light of their intricate web of fecund rapport and mutual influence.Authors such as Tutuola, Armah, Aidoo and Awoonor translated the fluid structures of orality into written prose, and consequently infused their works with poetic and dramatic resonance, thereby challenging the canonical dominance of social realism and paving the way for the birth of West African magical realism in Laing, Okri and Cheney-Coker.Starting in the 1970s, poetry on stage has become a mainstream genre in Ghana, thanks to performances by Okai, Anyidoho and Acquah.Boundaries between literary theatre and other genres have undergone a similar dissolution in the affirmation of the concept of 'total art' from Efua Sutherland to ben Abdallah, Osofisan and others. Fertile Crossingsoffers a study of these topics from various viewpoints, blending in-depth textual analysis with reflections on the political import of the works in question within the context of the present state of African societies, all supported by interviews with most of the authors.




Oxford Reading Tree: Stages 10-12: TreeTops True Stories: Sea Empress Disaster


Book Description

TreeTops True Stories are exciting, motivating non-fiction books which will broaden your pupils' reading experience. They are part of a structured reading programme for juniors. A very direct and personal account of events surrounding the grounding, and subsequent breaking up of the Sea Empress in Milford Haven, Wales in February 1996. Ceri is a fictional 10-year old girl who takes us through the events as she writes her diary. However, the disaster itself and its aftermath are very real and Ceri is representative of many children whose families whole way of life was almost destroyed. Photos and captions combine with the touchingly naïve artwork style of new OUP illustrator, Karen Edward. This book is also available as part of a mixed pack of 6 different books or a class pack of 36 books of the same Oxford Reading Tree stage. Each book pack comes with a free copy of invaluable teaching notes.




A History of Gay Literature


Book Description

Account of male gay literature across cultures and languages and from ancient times to the present. It traces writing by and about homosexual men from ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages and Renaissance to the twentieth-century gay literary explosion. It includes writers of wide-ranging literary status (from high cultural icons like Virgil, Dante, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Proust to popular novelists like Clive Barker and Dashiell Hammett) and of various locations (from Mishima s Tokyo and Abu Nuwas s Baghdad to David Leavitt s New York). It also deals with representations of male-male love by writers who were not themselves homosexual or bisexual men.




Who Extinguished the Fire?


Book Description

Who Extinguished the Fire And Other Poems is an up-to-date collection of Turyatemba’s verse. The new collection comprises fourteen groupings of poems on a variety of subjects. "The poet has penned poetry of the commonplace—retained the ordinary, local flavours that could be lost when trying to get sophisticated. Turyatemba defies the myth that poetry is complicated and cannot be understood. We can easily recognize both our private and public systems in this collection.” Dr. Mildred K. Barya. “In crafting his poems, Turyatemba makes idiom his mainstay and in so doing he breathes life into the most common sayings. His poems work like riddles throwing perplexing questions at the reader. He truly is in deep conversation with his audience. His wide exploration of the African condition makes an important contribution to both our literary and philosophical thinking.” - Dr. Susan Kiguli. “Coming from a literary student of Economics, these poems are very rich in one of the essential features of poetry – economy. Also rich in figurative or picture language, most of the poems are witty depictions of the nice and nasty contradictions in the physical environment as well as in the personal, cultural, social and political contexts explored by the poet.” - Professor Timothy Wangusa. Cover design by Grace Bithum and Robert Bigirwenkya.




Long Walk to Freedom


Book Description

"Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand history – and then go out and change it." –President Barack Obama Nelson Mandela was one of the great moral and political leaders of his time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. After his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela was at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is still revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela told the extraordinary story of his life -- an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. The book that inspired the major motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.




I Am An African


Book Description

This creative collection brings together Africa poems by South African poet and writer, Wayne Visser, including the ever popular "I Am An African", as well as old favourites like "Women of Africa", "I Know A Place in Africa", "Prayer for Africa" and "African Dream". The anthology celebrates the luminous continent and its rainbow people. The updated 5th Edition includes new poems like "Africa Untamed" and "Land of the Sun".




West Africa


Book Description




Knowledge Beyond Colour Lines


Book Description

Knowledge remains timely in education. The need for academics to contemplate its relevance, worth, use and everything in-between deems a continuous intellectual project, rather than a conundrum to be solved. This book takes the South African context by the horns as it challenges the often dormant and traditionalist ways in which higher education spaces see knowledge. Through original research and the voices of academics and students, this book argues for repurposing knowledge generation, knowledge sharing and critical pedagogy so that more inclusive teaching and learning environments can be both imagined and sustained. The contentious tensionalities that this creates for LoLT and SoTL, in particular, are unlocked so as to trouble the South African higher education landscape with the intent to proffer alternative pathways for a knowledge beyond colour lines. Prof Shan Simmonds (PhD) NWU This edited volume bristles with fresh scholarly approaches and insights of an emergent generation of engaged scholars grappling with the issues and problems of higher education in South Africa. The issues dealt with here are varied and encompassing. They are treated with intellectual delicacy and probing sensitivity, articulacy, informed data and bold conclusions. They serve well! Prof. Kwesi Kwaa Prah Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of the Western Cape Founder of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society