In 2009, Mamle Kabu was the second Ghanaian to be a finalist for one of Africa's most important literary prizes, the Caine Prize. She is a writer of Ghanaian and German descent, was born and raised in Ghana and spent ten years in the United Kingdom during which she studied at Cambridge University. She returned to Ghana in 1992 where she has since been resident, and in addition to writing fiction she does research consultancy in development issues. In 2009 she was nominated for the Caine Prize for her short story “The End of Skill” published in Dreams, Miracles and Jazz: New Adventures in African Writing, edited by Helon Habila and Kadija Sesay, Picador Africa, 2008. Other shorts stories by her are “Human Mathematics,” published in Mixed: An anthology of Short Fiction on the Multi-racial Experience edited by Chandra Prasad, W.W. Norton 2006; and “Story of Faith” in ‘African Women Writing Resistance: Contemporary Voices’ edited by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, University of Wisconsin Press, 2010.

The poem “Orange Juice” is one of the many poems she has written about Ghana and Africa. It appears in print for the first time on this blog.

Orange Juice

My dying wish?
Orange juice
From oranges that are yellow
Not orange,
Oranges from the forests of Ghana
Grown wild in cool shade
And careless beauty

Why orange juice?
Because it’s the colour of the sun
And tastes like life,
And even better things
that have no name
But can be drunk

Oranges loaded onto mammy trucks
Piled high by the roadside
Hawked with peel neatly shaved
Sucked dry, turned inside out
For the last drops
Of trapped sunlight
posing as juice

That’s what I want
That dying day,
The sun distilled
Light as liquid
A mouthful of life
No, even better things
That can’t be named
But can be drunk

Selected Works

3. Poetry

Dave the Potter
A picturebook poem describing the life of the slave potter Dave. Illustrated by Bryan Collier.

Contemporary Poetry of New England
“Contemporary Poetry of New England offers a vivid portrait of a region, its colors and smells, its physical and emotional textures, and the people…. It presents a range of poets, few of whom would call themselves a “region poet,” although each has taken to heart in a private way Frost’s haunting dictum: ‘Locality gives art.’”

--from the Introduction

1. Nonfiction

DJ Kool Herc
The first picturebook biography of the founder of rap and hip hop, DJ Kool Herc!

America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s
"Phenomenal."–Howard Zinn "Excellent."–New York Times Book Review

Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance
“Harlem Stomp! is a wonderous new book: it celebrates a time, a place, an energy, and a people who refused to be held back and so they created a culture the entire world is still reeling from.”

--George C. Wolfe, writer, director, and producer of the Public Theater, NYC

2. Fiction

A Brush with Napoleon
A seventeen-year-old is plucked out of the Grande Armee to sit in place of Napoleon for a portrait of the Emperor by the artist David.

Casa Azul
"I felt like a kid reading every word on the page! I liked the strains of "magic realism" coming through in Frida's house! Children will relate to this very much! The story is charming and reads like a thriller." –Margarita Aguilar, Assisant Curator, El Museo del Barrio

4. Middle Grade Series

Xtreme Mysteries
These kids love extreme sports--snowboarding, skateboarding, rock climbing, wake boarding--and are ready to fight when the right to do their sport is threatened.