Tag: Harmattan Rain

Ayesha H. Attah, Book Reviews

The Hundred Wells of Salaga by Ayesha Harruna Attah

by Darkowaa13 Comments on The Hundred Wells of Salaga by Ayesha Harruna Attah

Date Read: June 23rd 2018

Published: May 2018

Publisher: Cassava Republic Press

Pages: 234

The Blurb

Aminah lives an idyllic life until she is brutally separated from her home and forced on a journey that turns her from a daydreamer into a resilient woman. Wurche, the willful daughter of a chief, is desperate to play an important role in her father’s court. These two women’s lives converge as infighting among Wurche’s people threatens the region, during the height of the slave trade at the end of the 19th century.

Set in pre-colonial Ghana, The Hundred Wells of Salaga is a story of courage, forgiveness, love and freedom. Through the experiences of Aminah and Wurche, it offers a remarkable view of slavery and how the scramble for Africa affected the lives of everyday people.

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Review – ★★★★★ (5 stars)

I would rate The Hundred Wells of Salaga 4.5 stars in a heartbeat, but I’m rounding up my rating to 5 stars. Ayesha Harruna Attah has grown soooo much as a writer and this third novel is proof of her wonderful growth. The Hundred Wells of Salaga is very well researched and I’m ashamed at how little I knew about the internal slavery within the continent during the 1800’s. It’s amazing how we Ghanaians know very little about our country – I had no idea what or where Salaga was. While I was reading, I fervently looked for more information on Salaga and slavery of Northern Ghana and came across this video on YouTube – SALAGA: An Ancient Slave Trade Center. It’s an excellent 19 minute, short documentary on the ancient slave trade center. Enjoy!

I just love that this historical novel opens up conversation around – internal, trans-Saharan & trans-Atlantic slave trade, amongst readers. This novel opens up the wounds of our past and shows how complicit we were the in our greed for power through the fragmenting of families. The Hundred Wells of Salaga forced me to examine how many families in Africa (and Asia) currently practice modern forms of ‘slavery’ through the use of ‘house helps’ or ‘house girls’ and the effects of this modern practice.

All of Ayesha’s novels have been great reads for me because she creates well-rounded characters. Typically, the chapters of her books are dedicated to the characters, so the storyline is propelled through the lens of the different characters of her books; I was excited to see this technique used in The Hundred Wells of Salaga.

Aminah and Wurche’s characters were great contrasts – while Aminah’s character was calm, kind and obedient; Wurche was confident, pleasantly arrogant and ambitious – my type of gal, to be honest! Ayesha gets readers acquainted with Aminah and her family to the point where it feels like Aminah’s family is our own. Reading Aminah’s chapters felt a bit grime and I had this feeling of doom and fear as the story progressed. Ayesha manages to personalize slavery through Aminah’s character, and readers feel the hurt and vulnerability it caused ordinary folk.

Wurche’s chapters were the vehicle that drove the feminist narrative in this novel. Readers see first-hand how women (more so Wurche) were used to push the agendas of domination, through arranged marriages and other acts of coercion; and the various acts of rebellion the brave women took. Readers start to understand the legacies of slavery in Ghana through Aminah and Wurche, and get acquainted with other characters like – a German, who ideally would be seen as the big, bad colonizer, an Ashanti slave owner (Wofa Sarpong) and many other personalities who challenge our values. Islam plays an interesting role in this novel – I loved the dichotomy of how it was used to teach values, but also regulated the lives of women, which affect Wurche’s headstrong nature.

Ayesha did an excellent job with The Hundred Wells of Salaga! I truly hope this book is sold in Salaga or bookshops, museums and historical sites in Northern Ghana. It’s a necessary resource.

The Hundred Wells of Salaga has been acquired by Other Press (USA) and will be published February of next year (image on the right – how beautiful is the book cover?! It was illustrated by the talented Loveis Wise). The book also has translation rights in Dutch (bottom left image), French, German, Italian and Turkish!

★★★★★ (5 stars) – Amazing book, I loved it. Absolutely recommend!

Purchase The Hundred Wells of Salaga on Amazon

Check out my book reviews of Ayesha H. Attah’s other novels:

Ayesha H. Attah, Book Reviews

Saturday’s Shadows by Ayesha H. Attah

by Darkowaa7 Comments on Saturday’s Shadows by Ayesha H. Attah

Date Read: February 27th 2016

Published: January 2015

Publisher: World Editions

Pages: 352

Saturday's Shadows

The Blurb

The protagonists of Saturday’s Shadows experience the fine line between sanity and madness as they try to find and hold on to love in the volatile world of 1990s West Africa. After a seventeen-year military dictatorship, a country tries to find it’s footing while the members of the middle-class Avoka family lurch towards destruction. They live in a politically complex climate, a time so tenuous that the country could easily dip back into its military past.

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Review – ★★★ (3 stars)

Saturday’s Shadows is a multi-voice novel about the Avoka family in an unnamed West African country. Readers meet Theo – the head of the Avoka family, who is working on the president – Dr. Karamoh Saturday’s memoir and might be caught up in dangerous political risks. His wife is Zahra, who works in the farming industry but is pre-occupied with re-living her past love life with an old flame. And there’s Kojo, their only child who is struggling to keep up with schoolwork at the prestigious International Secondary School. Atsu, the Avoka family’s house help is straight out of the village and is busy balancing learning to read and write English while trying to stay out of trouble with a suspicious man who admires her.

Saturday’s Shadows is a decent novel and Ayesha H. Attah does an amazing job with character development. Character development is a huge strength of Ayesha Harruna Attah’s and I remember truly enjoying the character development of characters like Sugri and Akua-Afriyie in Harmattan Rain back in 2014. My favorite character in Saturday’s Shadows is Kojo. He is such a witty, hilarious, typical teenage boy with insecurities and worries of growing up. I was always happy to read his chapters in this novel as he finds young love and struggles with bullies and Math at school. My least favorite character in this novel is Kojo’s mother – Zahra. She’s such selfish mother and wife! Throughout the book, she only lives to satisfy her own wants and needs, which put her health and marriage at risk. Theo Avoka’s chapters are intriguing as well. He gives the novel a political feel, which is a different dimension to the family-oriented theme of this novel.

Because this story takes place in an unnamed West African nation, the different characters have various names of West African origin. For example, some characters have Nigerian names like Kunle and Ngozi ; Ghanaian names like Atsu and Kojo ; Senegalese names like Ndeye and Diouf. This may seem trivial, but I really loved how there was a cute blend of West African names in this novel! But it took me 2 months to finish Saturday’s Shadows – I started it a day after Christmas and ended up taking a break from the book when I got to page 260 or so. I think I was just craving a story that was more fast-paced and exciting. Why did all the good action have to happen on page 300, almost towards the end? After I picked this up again in February, I found the storyline to be a bit predictable. I’m a huge fan of Ayesha H. Attah’s work, but this book wasn’t as exciting for me as Harmattan Rain. Definitely read this book if you enjoy character development and a family themed story!

★★★ (3 stars) – Good book. I recommend it, I guess.

Check out some photos from the Saturday’s Shadows book reading I attended back in 2015 – here.

Ayesha H. Attah is working on a new novel called One Hundred Wells of Salaga! Read more about it – here. I’m excited for it!!

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Purchase Saturday’s Shadows on Book Depository

Ayesha H. Attah, Book Reviews

Harmattan Rain by Ayesha H. Attah

by Darkowaa7 Comments on Harmattan Rain by Ayesha H. Attah

Date Read: February 10th 2014

Published: 2008

Publisher: PER ANKH

Pages: 434

Harmattan-Rain

The Blurb

Harmattan Rain follows three generations of women as they cope with family, love and life. A few years before Ghana’s independence, Lizzie-Achiaa’s lover disappears. Intent on finding him, she runs away from home. Akua Afriyie, Lizzie-Achiaa’s first daughter, strikes out on her own as a single parent in a country rocked by successive coups. Her daughter, Sugri grows up overprotected. She leaves home for university in New York, where she learns that sometimes one can have too much freedom. In the end, the secrets parents keep from their children eventually catch up with them

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Review – ★★★★ (4 stars)

Once I finally gave this book a chance, I really enjoyed it! I started Harmattan Rain in October of 2013, but put it down after reading 30 pages or so. I found the beginning a bit slow so I just took a break and came back to it in February.

Harmattan Rain focuses on three generations of Ghanaian women in a family: Lizzie-Achiaa, Akua Afriyie and Sugri. Readers experience Ghana (mostly the capital, Accra) through these characters from 1954- before independence, to the early 2000’s. We learn about Ghana’s political unrest during the coup d’etat era and witness the evolution of Ghanaian politics. Ayesha Harruna Attah does a great job of weaving Ghana’s history into the storyline in a simple, clear way, without being politically biased.

The novel is divided into three parts, so readers have the opportunity to delve deep into the lives of each character and their storyline. Ayesha Harruna Attah effortlessly develops each character and their storyline to the point where all three storylines are meshed together perfectly. As the novel takes us from one generation to the next, readers witness family cycles, past mistakes and habits continuing. It was refreshing to go through the realistic ups and downs of these ladies’ lives: Lizzie-Achiaa- the brave matriarch of the family runs away from her village to find her lost lover and also tries to pursue her nursing career in Accra; Akua Afriyie- Lizzie’s rebellious first child struggles with being a single parent and strives to find happiness through her art; Sugri- Akua Afriyie’s only daughter, a brilliant but sheltered girl, learns hard lessons of life as she goes away to college in the US.

My favorite part of the novel is part three, which focuses on Sugri. I could identify with Sugri more, as she attended an international high school, went to university abroad and experienced being ‘different’ outside of Ghana. She may be a little naive, but her growth and strength by the end of the novel was inspiring! Ayesha Harruna Attah seems to be a shy person from some interviews I’ve seen, so I was pleasantly surprised when I was reading this book because she’s a powerful writer with an unexpected creative imagination. Harmattan Rain is a great debut for Ayesha Harruna Attah and I can’t wait to read her next novel!

Check out a sneak peek of her second novel, Saturday’s Shadows to be launched this Fall – here!

★★★★ (4 stars) – Great book. Highly recommend!

Purchase Harmattan Rain on Amazon