Africa Biography

The road to success is rarely linear and never easy. But with courage, hard work, perseverance, and dedication to duty, Jim Ovia, founder and chairman of Zenith Bank, proves we can achieve the unthinkable. Jim has been called the Godfather of Banking by Forbes Africa. And this should be no surprise. In a time of tension between military and civilian regimes, periods of incredible economic instability, and a decaying infrastructure, Jim founded Zenith Bank in Nigeria.

Sydney Kentridge carved out a reputation as South Africa's most prominent anti-apartheid advocate—his story is entwined with the country's emergence from racial injustice and oppression. He is the only lawyer to have acted for three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize—Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Chief Albert Lutuli. Already world-famous for his landmark cases, he then became England's premier advocate.

At the peak of his powers, and with the world at his feet after a breakout season in the Australian Football League (AFL), the North Melbourne Kangaroos' Majak Daw was on the verge of finally becoming one of the AFL's bona fide superstars - but it all came crashing down. After secretly battling years of mental health issues, the Sudanese-born phenomenon leapt off the Bolte Bridge in Melbourne in a shock attempt to end his life.

To Westerners, the name Timbuktu long conjured a tantalizing paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late 18th century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for "discovery" tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way, too. A medieval center of learning, it was home to tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts.

Peter Firstbrook spent many months in Kenya researching the history of Barack Obama's family. Peter is the only person to have traced Obama's roots from the present back through more than 20 generations, thanks to the Luo tribe's remarkable oral tradition.

A Black woman who suffered the outrages of apartheid - including the murder of her father - shares her outlook on her struggles with humanity and forgiveness.

My Two Centuries in Africa is a humorous, affectionate, intimate book about Africa. It’s a personal memoir about how a guy from Indiana accidentally spent almost 40 years in Africa and lived to tell about it. (Book One covers the 20th century, from 1980-2000 when the author lived and worked in North and West Africa).

Most histories of the US Army in World War II view the Mediterranean Theater of Operations primarily as a deadly training ground for very green forces, where lessons learned on the beaches of Oran, in the hills of the Kasserine Pass area, and at the collapse of the Tunis bridgehead all contributed to later success in Western Europe. Steven Barry, however, contends that victory in the MTO would not have materialized without the leadership of battalion-level commanders. They operated at a high level, despite the lack of combat experience for themselves and their troops.

Despite her mother's tales of a rustic childhood in South Africa and bohemian years in London, Brockes grew up knowing that some crucial pieces of the past were left unspoken. Looking to unearth the truth after her mother Paula's death, Brockes begins a dangerous journey into the land - and the life - her mother fled from years before. She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me is a tale of true transformation, the story of a young woman who reinvented herself so completely that her previous life seemed to simply vanish - and of a daughter who transcends her mother's fears and reclaims an abandoned past.

Mungo Park was an explorer of the real kind. In 1795, only aged 24, he left Gambia for the uncharted interior of Africa, in a journey that would be filled with tragedy, heroism, and adventure. Park was the first European to ever reach the river Niger and the legendary city of Timbuctoo, thus resolving, once and for all, a century-old geographic debate. He travelled with local guides and later entirely alone, through warring kingdoms, robberies, imprisonment, and extreme duress. By the time he returned to Gambia, he had long been given up for dead.

Bronnie Ellis Stroud left Indianapolis for Bawku. There, in the sahel, in the northeastern corner of the Gold Coast, now Ghana, and later along the forested coast, he altered the course of a people and a country. A linguist, missionary, and educator, a husband, father, and grandfather, he was an adventurer and a man of unfailing affection. He built churches and schools. More importantly, he formed enduring loyalties that strengthened those with whom he worked. A tireless man, his eyes twinkled blue and he walked fast.

Helge Timmerberg, Abenteurer und Globetrotter, hat den letzten ihm noch unbekannten Kontinent bereist: Afrika...

Médicos con vocación solidaria, ex azafatas, ex ejecutivas y mujeres de éxito, decidieron cambiar de vida para aportar soluciones prácticas y creativas entre los más necesitados del continente africano. Iniciativas contra la ablación, para crear pozos de agua, construir escuelas, ambulatorios, orfanatos… Premiado con la medalla de oro del Latino Books Awards al mejor libro sobre mujeres en la que las protagonistas comparten un nexo común: formar parte de la solución. Ayudar.

In 1994, 16-year-old Eric Irivuzumugabe climbed a cypress tree and remained there for 15 days without food or water. He wasn't trying to win a bet with his friends--he was attempting to save his life. Eric is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of 800,000 people in just 100 days. In the midst of indescribable loss, and without a job, a home, or an education, Eric was determined to start a new life for himself and his two surviving brothers.

At just ten years old, Julie leaves her close-knit loving family in the city for a country boarding school in Swaziland to join her brother, Seth. Julie's adventures offer an insight into life at a harsh, food-rationed religious boarding school of the fifties. This school, set in glorious African countryside, includes all the sports, horse-riding, piano lessons, performing arts, and high level of education that are possible to prepare a child for entrance to a British university

During his years of reporting from the world's most savage and turbulent regions, Fergal Keane has witnessed the violence of the South African townships and the terror in Rwanda, the most extreme kinds of human behaviour, the horror of genocide, and the bravery of peacekeepers faced with overwhelming odds. As one of the BBC's leading correspondents, he recounts extraordinary encounters on the front lines.

International human rights activist Lisa Shannon spent many afternoons at the kitchen table having tea with her friend Francisca Thelin, who often spoke of her childhood in Congo. Thelin would conjure vivid images of lush flower gardens, fish the size of small children, and of children running barefoot through her family's coffee plantation, gorging themselves on fruit from the robust and plentiful mango trees.

Rosemary Venter was born in the Transvaal in 1928. This is a long series of three books, covering a period of 72 years. My mother who produced the original manuscript is now over 95 years old. The story is, among other things, an attempt to portray the social history of the times. She believed it important that records were kept of those days, where economic and political change was rapid and unpredictable. This was her contribution to that history.

"Monkey Weddings & Summer Sapphires" is a lovely telling of a childhood spent in Johannesburg, South Africa, and of settling into adult life and motherhood in Nova Scotia, Canada. Recipes, collected from travels, family, and friends allows the story to be told with the foods and dishes as the conveyance. The changing seasons, the natural wild beauty that surrounds everyday life, the abundance of wild edibles and local produce all serve as the inspiration to each chapter.

Ein halbes Jahr Auszeit wollen sich Ulli und Lena nehmen und von Hamburg nach Südafrika fahren, den Kontinent entdecken, aber auch sich selbst wiederfinden. In Südafrika kommen sie nie an. Stattdessen reisen sie in ihrem alten Land Rover und einem 40 Jahre alten Dachzelt zwei Jahre durch Westafrika. Es geht um einiges. Darum, in sich selbst hinein zu hören, sich selbst bewusst zu werden und sich wieder zu spüren. Und nicht eher umzudrehen, bis sich an der eigenen Einstellung am Leben etwas grundlegend geändert hat.