Africa Memoir

Brother Mambo is a memoir of an anthropology graduate student who set out to document African cultural influences in the Guianas of South America. His initial study plan blocked by local immigration officials, he followed a hummingbird and other oracles to an Amazonian river and the Pamakans, Africans who had escaped slave plantations in Suriname to rebuild a society in the rainforest.

When Dr. Ellen Einterz first arrives in the town of Kolofata in Cameroon, the situation is dire: Patients are exploited by healthcare workers, unsterilized needles are reused, and only the wealthy can afford care. In Life and Death in Kolofata: An American Doctor in Africa, Einterz tells her remarkable story of delivering healthcare for 24 years in one of the poorest countries in the world, revealing both touching stories of those she is able to help and the terrible suffering of people born in extreme poverty.

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.

Empty Hands is the inspiring memoir of Zulu nurse and health-care activist Sister Abegail Ntleko. Growing up poor in a rural village with a father who didn't believe in educating girls, against seemingly insurmountable odds Sister Abegail earned her nursing degree and began work as a community nurse and educator, dedicating her life to those in need.

Henri lived only a few short years in Europe before the family moved to the Belgian Congo, a country deep in the heart of Africa. These were the early 1900s at a time when the colonial era was in full swing. The White Man ruled the native population with undisputed authority and many parts of the country were totally uncivilized. Henri adapted easily to his new surroundings and the memoir chronicles his unique experiences with surprising verve and stirring prose.

As a five-year-old, George Alagiah emigrated with his family to Ghana, the first African country to gain independence from the British Empire. A Passage to Africa is Alagiah's shattering catalogue of atrocities crafted into a portrait of Africa that is infused with hope, insight and outrage. In vivid and evocative prose and with a fine eye for detail, Alagiah's viewpoint is spiked with the freshness of the young George on his arrival in Ghana, the wonder with which he recounts his first impressions of Africa and the affection with which he dresses his stories of his early life.

Africa’s Child is the story of a mixed-race girl growing up in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania, East Africa. Raised in an orphanage with no knowledge of her origins or family, she endured abandonment, hardships, severe illnesses, and bullying. Her experiences as a child and teenager included physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, social stigma, and racial discrimination. Yet Nhambu tells her inspiring story with warmth and humor.

In 1910, Olive MacLeod, a 30-year-old, redheaded Scottish aristocrat, received word that her fiancé, the famous naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa. So she went to find him. Olive the Lionheart is the thrilling true story of her astonishing journey. In jungles, swamps, cities, and deserts, Olive and her two companions, the Talbots, come face-to-face with cobras and crocodiles, wise native chiefs, a murderous leopard cult, a haunted forest, and even two adorable lion cubs that she adopts as her own.

Alison Blackmore had an unconventional childhood on a remote farm in Matabeleland during a turbulent transition from colonial rule to independence. In Africa Noon she recounts early adventures with her most loyal friend, her dog Shadow. This memoir covers Alison’s early years in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) around 1965, during the period of UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) from Britain.

In the space of a few days, Carrie loses her marriage, her career, and her home - all while working in Lagos, Nigeria. She is blindsided by the losses and realizes the story she painstakingly knit together over the past two decades - the story explaining her life and who she is - has unraveled. With no plan and only her deaf cat, Lucy, for company, Carrie decides to remain in Africa. What happens next is an awkward, amusing, and ultimately inspiring journey as Carrie slowly lets go of who she thought she was and starts from scratch at middle-age.

Biography of a man immigrating from Africa to the United States.

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.

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

Sarah Thebarge, a Yale-trained physician assistant, nearly died of breast cancer at age 27, but that did not end her deeply felt spiritual calling to medical missions in Africa. Risking her own health, she moved to Togo, West Africa - ranked by the United Nations as the least happy country in the world - to care for sick and suffering patients. Serving without pay in a mission hospital, she pondered the intersection of faith and medicine in her quest to help make the world "well".

Finally, a Black professional in Corporate America exposing what it is like to be Black! Papa M Niang was born in Senegal, West Africa, where he graduated high school before moving to France for his undergraduate studies in mathematics.

Risk and Return is the story of one man’s return to Africa - a journey that begins with a search for self-fulfillment, which then evolves into an entrepreneurial adventure filled with tribulations, triumphs, and many life lessons that will keep listeners engaged from start to finish. In a casual conversational voice, the author, Yomi Jemibewon, gives an honest, often hilarious and sometimes sobering account of what it feels like to chase a dream under highly uncertain circumstances.

This compelling memoir describes Elsa van der Byl’s life in South Africa during apartheid, the transition to democracy, and the transformational period. As an educator, she worked with various cultural groups in the so-called homelands, experiencing student revolts, college closures, and being held hostage by students. Listeners are regaled with interesting incidents when, as choir director, Elsa promoted black cultural festivals and interaction with white institutions. Also interwoven are impartial political observations and coping with crime.

Foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, arrived in Zimbabwe in 1997. After witnessing firsthand the devastating consequences of AIDS on the population, especially the children, the couple started volunteering at an orphanage that was desperately underfunded and short-staffed. One afternoon, a critically ill infant was brought to the orphanage from a village outside the city. She'd been left to die in a field on the day she was born.

Abdel Karim AlKhattabi, also spelled Abdelkarim el-Khattabi, was a prominent Moroccan nationalist and leader of the Moroccan independence movement during the mid 20th century. AlKhattabi played a crucial role in organizing and leading the armed resistance against French and Spanish colonial rule in Morocco. He became a symbol of resistance and a champion of Moroccan independence. AlKhattabi led the Rif Republic, an independent state established in the Rif region from 1921 to 1926.

The founder of multibillion-rand financial services empire Sygnia Limited, Magda Wierzycka is South Africa’s most successful businesswoman. In this engaging and insightful book, she tells the story of her life, from her childhood in communist Poland, her family’s escape and relocation to South Africa, her early struggles in the male-dominated financial services industry and the formation and growth of her own company, Sygnia.