Customer Reviews

Remembering the Home Spirits

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Writing and telling stories is my strength, inherited from a long line of storytellers. This
collection of stories and a play continues this tradition. This collection is full of wonderful
and satisfying odd twists and turns. However, each story encourages the reader to
surrender to its enchantments, twists, turns, and learn much about the African people and
culture. The stories provide insights into the continent of Africa as experienced by the
writer over a period of more than forty years with all the dramatic challenges, tensions,
and changes as found for example in the play, "The Coup," as Africa enters the modern
age.

These stories introduce characters one can readily identify with; for these fears, emotions,
and entities are universal. Every reader can identify with the story of my growing up
with my friend in the story, " Freddie and Me and the Kite." Many of the characters are
clever and even sincerely philosophic such as the characters in the story, "In the
Company of Good Spirits." Many of the characters are even comical such as those in
the Ananse folktale, "There Is No Right Way to Do A Dumb Thing.".

These stories are perhaps autobiographical, an interconnected set of stories capturing
perfectly the myriad stages of my life over a long period of time. This is graphically
demonstrated beginning with stories from childhood like "Freddie and the Kite," "My
Father's Twin Sister," "The Legend of Anna the Midwife," and then moving to the
trauma and polemical drama of returning home in the story, "Looking Back from the
Hill," and then to contemporary Africa with the story, "The Death of Innocence."
"Looking Back from the Hill," is the story that stands out for me. In essence, this
collection is a parable of what happens when things fall apart, from the loss of my coat of
arms (an elephant leaning against a palm tree) to the trickster, Ananse, the spider. Thus,
the collection is an insightful and sometimes factual tour through important moments in
my life and my own understanding of the peoples and cultures of Africa via my own
country of Ghana.