Africa Writes 2016 returns

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Africa Writes 2016 returns!



Check out highlights from last year's event here.




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What's your favourite Adinkra symbol?

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I put this question to MisBeee readers after blogging recently about the origins of Adinkra in the post: 'Adinkra - more than just a pretty face'.

Adinkra is a series of ideographic symbols from Ghana and the Ivory Coast depicting age-old proverbs that incorporate aspects of Asante culture, flora and fauna.

These symbols are strongly linked to religion, language, and geometry but in modern times are used widely in and outside Ghana for their aesthetic appeal. The list includes jewellery, pottery, clothing and architecture.

 Below is a snapshot of some of the responses I received, feel free to add your own. All images below come from adinkra.org.

 Kwame from Birmingham
My favourite symbol is Gye Nyame because everything starts with God, and ends with God. God creates, sustains and destroys and generates again. It is self-germinating. The symbol of Gye Nyame looks like a circle when connected and so it is symbolic of the circle of life.

Amartey from west Legon, Ghana My favourite sym…
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Ghanaian sitcom star leaves lasting legacy in Kwahu

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The late Gyearbuor Asante, who famously played long-term mature student Matthew in hit British sitcom Desmond’s, was also a royal.


He came from Tafo, Kwahu, in Ghana's Eastern Region but rather than follow tradition and become a chief, the young thespian got himself circumcised instead.

The reason, according to details from charity the Friends of Tafo (Kwahu), was to rule himself out of enstoolment.

He then left Ghana in the late 1960s to become an actor and the rest, as they say, is history. But life has a funny way of panning out and although Gyearbuor never became a chief, his close friend Humphrey Barclay, who incidentally was the executive producer of Desmond's, did! 

"I met Gyearbuor (or Christopher as he was known in UK then) in 1972, when he was doing such shows as Crown Court and so on," he told MisBeee. "I visited Ghana many times as his guest and when he died in 2000 at the age of 58 of clogged-up arteries, I was the only obruni (white man) at his funera…
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Afrobeat jazz collective out to explore music across the African continent

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The seven-strong ensemble have been playing renditions of timeless West African classics such as 'Kai Wawa' across London since 2014. (The song is a traditional Hausa war chant that was produced by the Mercury Dance Band in Kade, Ghana). 

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"Lo…
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