Bananas in the Rafters

About the Book

Bananas in the Rafters, sweeps the ardent young reader into a youthful adventure filled with great ethnic and cultural awakening, set within a world that has been misrepresented for centuries to many a non-African born child. Focusing on a small town located in a fictional West African nation, the children of Saint Paul’s Parish come alive once more after their celebration in The Christmas Hut, (also by the author) to share an important period in their lives while growing up in a part of the world within a continent, that is often tainted with massive socioeconomic setbacks and underdevelopment. Bananas in the rafters, focuses on families, leaders, children and average citizens, living within a community that operates within a grander culture of tribes, separated traditionally by religion, and culturally by dialects yet strongly united by nationality as one people. Its captivating text educates the young reader about a world out there, where the author once thrived as a child, as it uniquely weaves an enlightening variety of subject matters, from the yarns of family values, education and individual life experiences while sparingly dipping them into rigid realistic dyes of colonization, independence, revolutions, and an aspiring fight for national stability, before spinning them on looms that strengthen the stitching of history, education, and development together, in order to produce the best sociocultural fabric fit for the prospective wholesome blooming of the growing child. It is, indeed, the ultimate book tailored for this progressive era of cultural awareness and ethnic embrace. For within its pages, the reader’s imagination, as well as eyes, are open into the original workings of the African culture, in a far more practical way, than has ever been made literarily tasteful and readily accessible, to any African-authored young adult reader.

About the Author

Born, in the midsixties into a political and academic family in post colonial West Africa, this daughter of the motherland was raised and educated from early childhood to college level in its former Gold Coast nation along the Gulf of Guinea. M. S. E. Dzirasa’s unique writing style resonates far beyond mere giftedness into the sought-after literary world of her readers, where subject matter is married perfectly to adequacy of phrase and text. With an extensive background in library studies and early childhood education, she delivers her fourth work in genuine African-writer style, touching the honorable hems of the garments of highly celebrated literary giants of Africa. Like Achebe and Ekwensi, she creatively conjures proverbial phrases from her very own particular vocabulary storehouse whilst wielding her rare brand of literary genius, with the strength and confidence of the renowned authors from her part of the world. It is within this creative frame of mind that she ambitiously and tirelessly aspires to reach beyond their expertise as she invites the adventurous reader into her world to experience something different while savoring texts from an unknown author, who still hopefully wades the prerequisite mires of literary obscurity, waiting to emerge as one of the greatest. MSE contributes on Ghanaian / West African political sites as an activist for human rights and an advocate for fair, free, and regulated democratic governance. She is a widow and resides in the National Capital Area, USA, with her three cats. She can be connected on her Facebook author page, as well as her YouTube channel, MSE. Dzirasa.