Greetings Glocal Citizens!

We are nearing the end of our Writing As Activism series @ the 2024 Pa Gya! Literary Festival in Accra. This week, Ghanaian writer and editor winning acclaim as a children's author, poet, broadcaster and novelist, Nii Ayikwei Parkes joins the conversation. Winner of multiple international awards including the ACRAG (Arts Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana) award, his novel Tail of the Blue Bird won France's two major prizes for translated fiction – Prix Baudelaire and Prix Laure Bataillon – in 2014. Nii Ayikwei is the founder of flipped eye publishing, a leading small press; serves on the boards of World Literature Today and the AKO Caine Prize; and was chair of judges for the 2020 Commonwealth Prize. Translated in multiple languages, he has also written for National Geographic, Financial Times, the Guardian and Lonely Planet. His most recent books are The Ga Picture Alphabet and Azúcar, a novel. Currently Producer of Literature and Talks at Brighton Festival, he is also author of two collections of poetry The Makings of You (2010) and The Geez (2020), both published by Peepal Tree Press.

In this conversation, we journey with Nii Ayikwei through his works, his entreprenuership, his love for food and rum, and much more!

See Nii in converation at Pa Gya! here.

Where to find Nii Ayikwei?

On LinkedIn

On Instagram

On Facebook

On X

On YouTube

On Tik Tok

On BlueSky

What’s Nii Ayikwei listening to?

Gene Noble

Blues Man Robert Cray

The Roots

Cody Chesnutt + The Roots

and Headphone Masterpiece

Nii’s Pan-African Activism essential reading list:

Howard W. French, Born In Blackness

Mongo Beti’s, The Poor Christ of Bomba

Ama Atta Aidoo’s, No Sweetness Here

Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask

You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town, Zoë Wicomb

Kofi Awoonor, This Earth My Brother

Other topics of interest:

Historic Jamestown, Accra

Oto Blohum, Old Accra

North Kaneshie

Thornton Heath, UK

About Courttia Newland

Learn more about Nii’s uncle Frank Kobina Parkes

Nkyinkyim in the Adinkra

On Ghana’s Chop Bars

About Spanish-Caribbean Rum

About Rhum Agricole

Special Guest: Nii Ayikwei Parkes.