Remembering The Baobab
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by michael c. mbabuike
Price: $6.00
Book Website: http://afrstime@aol.com
90 Pages, Paperback, 6 x 9
ISBN-10: 0-9678460-5-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-9678460-5-7
Remembering The Baobab is a straight forward story of the great past of the African continent, its legacies, its enormous richesand the fate dealt to it by history as the author michael c. mbabuike narrated it to his children so many times.The story traces the lofty and enviable African civilizations through the most recent arrival of the Europeans and the Arabs which culminated in the Trans-Atlantic Slavery in the new world.The author laid special emphasis on the colonization of the African continent which was and still is a subtle continuation of slavery. Remembering the Baobab is a must historical account deemed very necessar for all the offsprings of the African Diaspora. It is also a reminder reading for adults who may have forgotten or lukewarm about their ancestral origins. The symbol of the Baobab tree as one of the longest living giant trees of Africa is most appropriate in the story. It was the last tree of Africa that enchained slaves saw before they were hudled into the Goree cave from where they were marched by force into the bellies of slave ships never for these unfortunate Africans to ever see again the African sun . It is hoped that when these slaves or their offsprings return finally to their ancestral land they will once again cast their eyes on that Baobab tree at the tip of Dakar , Senegal, West Africa.This is a children's story par ex
About The Author
The author michael c. mbabuike is an educator in the new york area where he is professor of the Humanities and Africana Studies at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York. A former chair of the dept of humanites and the College-Wide Senate, Mbabuike is still the coordinator of the Afriacana Studies Unit. He has served as two term president of the New York African Studies Association (NYASA).His works have been published by numerous scholarly journals in fields such as anthropology, the African family,literature, poetry, the African Diasporic issues,and social problems in minority communities.A family man who prides himself deeply in the blessings God has bestowed on him especially his two daughters and two sons.For Mbabuike poetry is also entertainment, history, philosophy but most importantly prayer and recognition of man's litlleness vis-a-vis the infinitie greatness of the divine. Mbabuike invites (possible readers) to come with him "through this...rigmarole of life, through rituals and ceremonies, rememberances of the past, of my childhood, of my village, of bushes, the forest, the yam fields, cassava plantations, and the market days...". His book on Senghor's poetry was published in 1989.
Reviews
"Remembering the Baobab" thrusts the reader back into those celebrative periods of oral traditions where life was lived and danced also through stories, anecdotes and proverbs for teaching history and civic duties to the younger generations.In this very touching account of our history and of our continent, the author Michael Mbabuike makes us relive and revist the saga of "akuko iro", the Igbo pedagogical narratives to entertain and to inform.This is a touching dialogue between father and daughter in which the child's curious questions about her people's history and continent are delicately answered by the father without leaving out any major atrocities committed by Europe and others against mother Africa.The section dealing with South Africa leaves the reader with a heavey heart but also with certain hope that perhaps somee thing good and fair will finally happen in the southern regions of Africa. The story is simple and the general diction fitted to the understanding level of a child and by extension of adults too.Remembering the Baobab is a must readstory for children and for grown-ups.It is definitely a reminder tale immersed in a nostalgic journey couched in Igbo method of enlightening, educating and iron clad resolve of never again to forget,
Reviewed by:
Joe Asike,Ph.D
Africanist & Professor of Philosphy
Howard University
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