Ivor Agyeman-Duah, one of Ghana's contemporary prolific writers, will launch a book on Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka on Tuesday, July 8 at 4pm in Accra. Agyeman-Duah co-edited Crucible of the Ages: Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80 with a Nigerian, Ogochukwu Promise.
The literary evening and launch at the Banquet Hall of the State House will be graced by Presidents John Dramani Mahama and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Chief Dr Emeka Anyaoku, a former Secretary General of the Commonwealth and many other dignitaries. The launch is organised by the Lumina Foundation, Centre for Intellectual Renewal and Global Media Alliance.
A journalist, policy consultant, essayist and literary historian, Agyeman-Duah's works include Reflection on Danquah-Busia Tradition and Political Reflections on the Motherland (co-authored with Dr Hilla Limann,Prof. Adu Boahen and Rev. Dr S.Asante Antwi). He co-edited Bu Me Be: Proverbs of the Akans with Mrs Peggy Appiah and Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah. He also wrote Seychelles Islands, a series on African cultures and customs. He was chief advisor for the production of 'Yaa Asantewaa, Warrior Queen' in collaboration with the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Manchester Opera House and the Edinburgh Festival Theatre in the United Kingdom (UK). He wrote and presented the television series 'Yaa Asantewaa,' which was shot in Ghana and Seychelles. He was part of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) series 'Into Africa' and 'Wonders of the African World.'
Agyeman-Duah authored Between Faith and History: A Biography of J.A. Kufuor, and is the editor and co-author of the highly-acclaimed trilogy: An Economic History of Ghana, Pilgrims of the Night: Development Challenges and Opportunities in Africa. His recent opus is Africa: A Miner's Canary into the 21st Century.
The recipient of over 15 awards, grants and fellowships from around the world, Agyeman-Duah was recently a fellow of the Centre for Middle East Studies in Galilee, Israel, where he worked on the essay collection, Jerusalem and Her Neighbours.
He serves as development policy advisor to the Lumina Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria, and is the director of Centre for Intellectual Renewal in Ghana. For a while, he was the Consular Minister at Ghana's diplomatic missions at the United States (US) and UK. He was decorated with the Order of the Volta (Officer Division).
Born on March 5, 1966, Agyeman-Duah is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. He attended Exeter College, University of Oxford, UK, from 2007 to 2008 where he was a Hilary and Trinity term Research Scholar-in-Residence. He researched on Africa's economic relations with East Asia and Japan under the framework of Tokyo International Conference on African Development; and Ghana's economic history in the last half-century.
During the same period, he was at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, where he studied International Relations and researched his dissertation on Africa's economic relations with East Asia and Japan. He obtained Master of Science (Msc) in International Relations. From 2005 to 2006, Agyeman-Duah was at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK, where he studied pre- and post-colonial economic development of East and South Asia, Africa and Latin America with groundings in the Theory, Practice and Policy of Development and Political Economy of Development. His research work was on Comparative Economic Development of West Africa and South Asia – Ghana and India. He was awarded an MSc degree.
He was at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Studies, Harvard University, US, from 1998 to 1999. There, he was a research scholar in Black Literary and Cultural Studies. He researched and studied the evolution of black intellectual and economic histories and the development of an emerging black middle class since the Civil Rights Movement. From 1995 to 1996, he studied Mass Communication and International Communication Order, International Print Journalism, Film, Propaganda, Cultural Studies and Public Affairs at the Centre for Journalism Studies, University of Wales, Cardiff, and was awarded Master of Arts (MA) degree.
From 1988 to 1990, Agyeman-Duah enrolled at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) where he garnered a Diploma in Journalism. After GIJ, he practised as a journalist with 'The Ashanti Pioneer,' later worked with 'The Independent' newspaper and became the editor of 'Ashanti Independent.' He left Ghana in the mid-1990s to UK for further studies.
