My First Coup DEtat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama in Ghana during the dismal post-independence lost decades of Africa. He was seven years old when rumours of a coup reached his boarding school in Accra. His father a minister of state was suddenly missing then imprisoned for more than a year. My First Coup DEtat offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africas success story. This is a one-of-a-kind book: Mahamas is a rare literary voice from a political leader & his stories work on many levels
- as fables as history as cultural & political analysis & of course as the memoir of a young man who unbeknownst to him or anyone else would grow up to be vice president of his nation. Though non-fiction these are stories that rise above their specific settings & transport the reader
- much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer & Nadine Gordimer
- into a world all their own one which straddles a time lost & explores the universal human emotions of love fear faith despair loss longing & hope despite all else.