Yeboah-Afari donates to Ghana Library Authority
A veteran journalist and one-time Journalist of the Year, Ms Ajoa Yeboah-Afari, has donated 200 copies of her novel titled Conversations With My Father to the Ghana Library Authority (GhLA).
The book chronicles the life of Ghana’s First Minister of Agriculture and Brong Ahafo’s first Regional Commissioner, Mr Kwame Boahene Yeboah-Afari.
The presentation was done at the launch of the declaration of 2019 as the “Year of Reading” by the GhLA in Accra last Tuesday.
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Promoting reading
The 200 books are meant to be used to stock all 61 libraries currently being managed by the GhLA in parts of the country.
The 300-page book documents the life of Mr Yeboah-Afari, a young political activist who played a pivotal role in the creation of the then Brong Ahafo Region.
Launched in November 2017 by former President John Agyekum Kufuor, the book touches on themes such as patience, perseverance and love and service to humanity.
Committed library user
In an interview with the Daily Graphic after the presentation, Ms Yeboah-Afari, who is also the President of the Editors Forum Ghana, said in her youthful days she was a regular visitor to the Accra Central Library.
She described herself as a committed library user as she was regular in the children’s section of the Maida Vale Library in West London, the British Council Library and the then United States Information Service (USIS) Library in Accra.
“When in late 2017 I published a biography of my father, I decided that it was time to progress from being a user to being a supplier”, she said.
She expressed the hope that her gesture would encourage other writers to also donate some of their books to enrich the GhLA’s collection.
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She commended the First Lady for taking the lead in helping to improve the reading culture among children, asking “how can an African country whose citizens have lost a reading culture hope to advance and hope to catch up with the rest of the world?”