Abongui My People Cote D Ivoire My Country America My Home

An economist with the World Bank Group, Kouassi admits his addiction to the fishing his daddy taught him early on the Djoreh river. An eligible heir to the throne of the Abongui kingdom in northeastern Côte d'Ivoire, he left home for school at five; saw an electrical light bulb in action and slipped into his first pair of shoes at eleven. Like most of his office colleagues, Kouassi knows first hand what it means to be poor. "Some people learn about poverty in books, yet millions have lived it; that means you assess situations and measure progress differently," titled his recent mini-portrait. This autobiography responds to demand from family and friends who wish to learn more about his amazing life story. From his native village in Côte d'Ivoire to graduate school in America, via the University of Abidjan, this breathtaking story walks you through the ethno-history of his culture and ethnicity. Moreover, it shows how his US-based charity has reached across miles to his home tribe. "Abongui Assah Bow Boka," or "Abongui's Helping Hand" in his native language, is incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Besides its historical content, the story links closely the value of education to Kouassi's own life.

This masterful six-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts. Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices is an extraordinary work, bringing together the scholarship of some 225 experts from around the globe. The encyclopedia's six volumes offer entries on every country of the world, with particular emphasis on the larger nations, as well as Indonesia and the Latin American countries that are traditionally given little attention in English-language reference works. Entries include profiles on religion in the world's smallest countries (the Vatican and San Marino), profiles on religion in recently established or disputed countries (Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh), as well as profiles on religion in some of the world's most remote places (Antarctica and Easter Island). Religions of the World is unique in that it is based in religion "on the ground," tracing the development of each of the 16 major world religious traditions through its institutional expressions in the modern world, its major geographical sites, and its major celebrations. Unlike other works, the encyclopedia also covers the world of religious unbelief as expressed in atheism, humanism, and other traditions.

A novel, also a philosophical tale in which destiny entraps the innocent protagonist and holds him fast. Some readers have found an affinity in it with Camus' notion of the absurd, while others have preferred to dwell on its evocation of country life in northern Dahomey and the importance of music in the farmers' daily life. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Tété-Michel Kpomassie was a teenager in Togo when he discovered a book about Greenland—and knew that he must go there. Working his way north over nearly a decade, Kpomassie finally arrived in the country of his dreams. This brilliantly observed and superbly entertaining record of his adventures among the Inuit is a testament both to the wonderful strangeness of the human species and to the surprising sympathies that bind us all.

A young man uncovers myth, history, and murder while searching for the soul of an unknown and magical place. Andrew Westoll spent a year living the dream of every aspiring primatologist: following wild troops of capuchin monkeys through the remote Central Suriname Nature Reserve, the largest tract of pristine rainforest left on earth. But that was only the beginning. Westoll left the world of science altogether when he departed Suriname six years ago. But the country itself stayed with him and became a strange obsession. Nestled above Brazil and the Upper Amazon Basin, Suriname has a legitimate claim to the title The Last Eden, as ninety percent of this mysterious country is covered in thick, neo-tropical jungle. Westoll read everything he could find about the old Dutch colony — wild stories about secretive Amazonian shamans, superstitious tribes of ex-African slaves, outlaw Brazilian gold-miners, a ghostly lake with the dead canopy of a drowned rainforest at its surface, and an unsolved political murder mystery that continues to haunt the nation. Five years passed, and Westoll yearned to return to the rainforest. Then the opportunity finally arose. Westoll didn’t think twice — he immediately quit his job, gave away most of his possessions, and kissed the love of his life goodbye. For the next five months, he explored the most surreal country in South America for a glimpse of its quintessential soul. He struggled up dark neo-tropical rivers, immersed himself in Surinamese Maroon culture, and met a cast of characters whose eccentricities perfectly mirrored the strangeness of their land. Westoll maps the natural and human geography of this exotic land while hunting for closure to his strange obsession with it. In the end, he tells a spellbinding story of survival, heartbreak, mystery, and murder.

Despite its unflinching look at our darkest impulses, and at the stark facts of being a colonized African, the book is ultimately inspirational, for it exposes us to a remarkable sensibility and a hard-won understanding of one's place in the world.CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French

A collection of poetry in French by African writer and artist Veronique Tadjo, and the English translations by Peter S. Thompson.

This memoir is an account of the Nicaraguan revolution, of meetings with Fidel Castro and exile in Costa Rica, and it is a tale of political and romantic awakening as Gioconda Belli learnt to fight against the shackles of society.