Nana Adjaloo

Odyssey of Akyemkwaa Nana Adjaloo

This Memoir, Odyssey of Akyemkwaa, is a coming-of-age story written with finesse and encompasses narrations which evoke scenes in a documentary movie. The main character, Siam Erzuah, is a Sales Representative working for the Sheehy Auto Group in Alexandria, Virginia. Encouraged by his appreciative customers as well as others, he reveals his personal life stories with a surprising flair of an accomplished story teller. From the beginning, the book takes the reader to the Village of Agona Mankrong in Ghana where Erzuah was born. In the early stages of his life, he becomes conscious of his parents' constant financial woes. As a result, he decides not to follow their subsistence farming occupation (his father also had an additional job as a Field Assistant for the Ministry of Agriculture helping Cocoa farmers). In succinct language, the book portrays Erzuah as having a profound distaste for subsistence farming out of various reasons including his morbid fear of snakes. Hence, he decides to take the education route to have a better job in the future. Despite the desire to be educated, the book tells of how Erzuah almost had his secondary school admission cancelled because of prolonged sickness and subsequent death of his elder brother--a situation which causes his parents to be financially incapacitated. Out of desperation, his parents want to postpone his education, but Erzuah will hear none of it! His insistence on going to school forces his father to ask for help from his friend, a move that causes Erzuah to end up in a virtual domestic slavery. Throughout his secondary and college education, the book traces Erzuah's struggles and progress with candor and humor. At one point, he is cornered and beaten up by a student gang of five for no reason. On another occasion, he steals a roasted plantain when he could not contain his hunger anymore, but gets caught and punished. His first job at Ghana's Bureau of National Investigations, and subsequent travel to the United States caps a life full of drama, successes, failures, and also determination. As a coming-of-age story, Odyssey of Akyemkwaa represents the archetypal rite-de-passage experienced by the average male growing up in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is a life story often times seen only on TV's in America and other Western Countries. This is a must read book for all adults, college students, and those who find themselves under unbearable stress in life.