My First Coup d'Etat
And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa
By John Dramani Mahama
(Bloomsbury USA, Hardcover, 9781608198597, 336pp.)
Publication Date: July 3, 2012
Categories: Presidents & Heads of State, Personal Memoirs
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My First Coup d’Etat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama in Ghana during the dismal post-independence "lost decades" of A frica. He was seven years old when rumors 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 d’Etat offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africa’s success story. This is a one-of-a-kind book: Mahama’s is a rare literary voice from a political leader, and his personal stories work on many levels—as fables, as history, as cultural and political analyses, and, 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 nonfiction, these are stories that rise above their specific settings and transport the reader—much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Nadine Gordimer—into a world all their own, one which straddles a time lost and explores the universal human emotions of love, fear, faith, despair, loss, longing, and hope despite all else.
John Dramani Mahama is a writer, historian, journalist, former member of Parliament and minister of state, and sitting vice president of the Republic of Ghana. This is his first book. He lives in Accra with his family and is currently at work on his second book.
"With crisp yet sweeping prose, John Mahama’s memoir, My First Coup d’Etat, provides insights into Ghana’s, and by extension, Africa’s struggle to weather its historical burden and engage with a world much removed from her dilemma. Without sentimentality or condescension, he exposes homegrown African pathologies and helps us understand several contradictions of our postcolonial condition. His is a much welcome work of immense relevance to African studies and deserves serious critical attention." —Chinua Achebe
"These stories reminded me of Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose memories of a vanished world feel half like memoir and half like fairy tale. Readers will be charmed by them. They brim with humanity." —Andrew Solomon, author of the National Book Award–winning The Noonday Demon"Mahama’s stories lure the reader into an unforgettable journey in which he interacts with history as a living tissue. The characters and the episodes are part of the everyday but one imbued with magic and suggestive power that go beyond the concrete and the palpable to hint at history in motion." —Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, author of Weep Not, Child"Warm and engaging. The view of a complex world in microcosm." —Aminatta Forna, author of the Commonwealth Book Prize–winning The Memory of Love"In fluid, unpretentious style, Mahama unspools Ghana’s recent history via entertaining and enlightening personal anecdotes."—Publishers Weekly "Sensitive, honest autobiographical essays… A wonderfully intimate look at the convulsive changes, and deep scarring, in post-colonial Africa."—Kirkus Reviews
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