Overview

"Is a creative biographical account of the Slave Trade at Osu, one of the leading slave trading centres off the West African Coast. Wellington employs a rhetorical device through the voice of the narrator, Ataa Forkoyi, to provoke discussion, dissolve the shame and confusion associated with the slave trade and to persuade the current generation of Africans to abandon the taboo of not speaking about it. Wellington, an architect by profession, does this by rummaging through the remaining physical ruins of the slave trade, picks up the stones one by one to construct a compelling narrative through the amalgam of values, conflicting colonial hegemony, layers of economic syncretism and the collision of cultures to bring to life the force of the relationship between the Europeans and their African counterparts.Stones Tell Stories at Osu has brought together the untold ""fragmented"" pieces of the story of the Slave Trade this side of the Atlantic and serves as the missing puzzle to those who seek answers. Wellington's rich narrative style still shines in this long-awaited second edition, a book that will tug at the curiosity of historians, anthropologists and students of English and Literature in high schools and universities alike and an engaging traveling companion that resists being laid down."

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9781894718158

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Reviews

This book gives us an entirely new insight into the history and memory of the people in Osu. There have been studies written and read for years, with scholarly, academic base. Here, now, is the firelight tale, told by a son of the soil who has grown up and lived in the milieu. His love of, and respect for the past of his people, as they remember it, pulsates through the text - drawing the reader in to join them. A truly singular and fine experience. - Selena Axelrod Winsnes, Raelingen, Norway It would have been nearly impossible for Nii-Adziri Wellington to have captured the one time colonial community in its entire historical feel and form as he does in this book were it not for the fact that he has his roots there. Certainly, the culture and the spiritual contents of Osu, this mixed community of settlers, the indigenous and the European, have been brought together in a nice package of a story called Stones Tell Stories at Osu. And Ataa Forkoyi, the surrogate storyteller and a likable character of apparent good repute, will not be forgotten, even long after the reading is done. - E. Ablorh-Odjidja Executive Director, Emerging Media Institute Henry Nii-Adziri Wellington's book, Stones Tell Stories at Osu: Memories of a Host Community of the Danish Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, a multipart biography of the slave trade at the Osu Coast, captures the kaleidoscopic notoriety and footprint on the landscape and culture of Osu. A professor of architecture and heritage studies (University of Ghana), Wellington succeeds in telling the story with the rounded texture of the architect. His creative nonfiction narrative is rooted in the perspective of writing for the contemporary average African, who through no fault of his or hers has embraced institutional forgetfulness when it comes to the slave trade. - Flora Trebi-Ollennu Author of Unquenchable Fire Unequivocal Call Wellington's peculiar literary approach intriguingly wrestles the telling of history away from its conventional academic forms, making the life of Osu a vivacious one. In addition, the volume courageously confronts the grim slavery years, defying the Danes' tendency to gloss over their unseemly participation, and the habits of the Ghanaian people to avoid speaking of that era entirely: 'Adopting a position of honest confrontation of the horrors of the past will make the lessons to be learnt from this dark period in our common history authentic and proactive.' A refreshingly unconventional and bold account of a culturally complex place in Africa. - Kirkus Reviews Stones Tell Stories at Osu is both uncommon and essential. The book is uncommon because it is both scholarly and readily accessible to non-specialists. The book is essential because it deals with a history that is thoroughly consequential to a geographical area of Ghana, to Denmark and, indeed, to the world. Having moved out of my African birthplace to live in North America about forty years ago, I see this book as a great tool in grounding both myself and my North American-born progeny in my African heritage. - Efa E. Etoroma, PhD Concordia University of Edmonton, Canada

"""This book gives us an entirely new insight into the history and memory of the people in Osu. There have been studies written and read for years, with scholarly, academic base. Here, now, is the firelight tale, told by a son of the soil who has grown up and lived in the milieu. His love of, and respect for the past of his people, as they remember it, pulsates through the text - drawing the reader in to join them. A truly singular and fine experience."" - Selena Axelrod Winsnes, Raelingen, Norway ""It would have been nearly impossible for Nii-Adziri Wellington to have captured the one time colonial community in its entire historical feel and form as he does in this book were it not for the fact that he has his roots there. Certainly, the culture and the spiritual contents of Osu, this mixed community of settlers, the indigenous and the European, have been brought together in a nice package of a story called Stones Tell Stories at Osu. And Ataa Forkoyi, the surrogate storyteller and a likable character of apparent good repute, will not be forgotten, even long after the reading is done."" - E. Ablorh-Odjidja Executive Director, Emerging Media Institute ""Henry Nii-Adziri Wellington's book, Stones Tell Stories at Osu: Memories of a Host Community of the Danish Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, a multipart biography of the slave trade at the Osu Coast, captures the kaleidoscopic notoriety and footprint on the landscape and culture of Osu. A professor of architecture and heritage studies (University of Ghana), Wellington succeeds in telling the story with ""the rounded texture of the architect."" His creative nonfiction narrative is rooted in the perspective of writing for the contemporary average African, who through no fault of his or hers has embraced institutional forgetfulness when it comes to the slave trade."" - Flora Trebi-Ollennu Author of Unquenchable Fire Unequivocal Call ""Wellington's peculiar literary approach intriguingly wrestles the telling of history away from its conventional academic forms, making the life of Osu a vivacious one. In addition, the volume courageously confronts the grim slavery years, defying the Danes' tendency to gloss over their unseemly participation, and the habits of the Ghanaian people to avoid speaking of that era entirely: 'Adopting a position of honest confrontation of the horrors of the past will make the lessons to be learnt from this dark period in our common history authentic and proactive.' A refreshingly unconventional and bold account of a culturally complex place in Africa."" - Kirkus Reviews ""Stones Tell Stories at Osu is both uncommon and essential. The book is uncommon because it is both scholarly and readily accessible to non-specialists. The book is essential because it deals with a history that is thoroughly consequential to a geographical area of Ghana, to Denmark and, indeed, to the world. Having moved out of my African birthplace to live in North America about forty years ago, I see this book as a great tool in grounding both myself and my North American-born progeny in my African heritage."" - Efa E. Etoroma, PhD Concordia University of Edmonton, Canada"

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