I was born near Cape Town, South Africa in 1936 but have spent most of my adult life in Ghana.
My first novel, Ama, a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, was published in 2001 and won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best First Book.
A sequel, Brave Music of a Distant Drum, was published in Canada in 2011 and the U.S. in 2012.
After obtaining over 200 permissions from copyright holders, I posted the primary and secondary documents I had gathered in the course of my research for Ama, at http://www.ama.africatoday.com My aim was to give non-specialist readers access to material which would assist them to criticize my work in an informed manner.
I'm now researching a novel, provisionally entitled The Boy Who Spat in Sagrenti's Eye, set in the British invasion of Asante in 1874. Sagrenti is the name given in Ghana to Major-General Sir Garnet Joseph Wolseley, who served imperial Britain in Burma, the Crimea, the Indian Mutiny, China, Canada, Sudan and South Africa. I'm presently ploughing through works by Henry Morton Stanley ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume") and G. A. Henty, who were among the correspondents who covered the war. I plan to illustrate the novel with contemporary images from the Illustrated London News based on drawings by Melton Prior.
I have to admit that I prefer reading history to historical fiction.
Manu Herbstein
Accra, Ghana
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From Accra, Ghana
welcome to this site and enjoy.
Bodo the Apostate, a novel set during the reign of Louis the Pious and end of the Carolingian Empire.
http://www.donaldmichaelplatt.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXZthhY6 ... annel_page
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Vanessa
- Bibliomaniac
- Posts: 4290
- Joined: August 2008
- Currently reading: The Farm at the Edge of the World by Sarah Vaughan
- Interest in HF: The first historical novel I read was Katherine by Anya Seton and this sparked off my interest in this genre.
- Favourite HF book: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell!
- Preferred HF: Any
- Location: North Yorkshire, UK
Welcome, Manu! I hope you enjoy it here.
currently reading: My Books on Goodreads
Books are mirrors, you only see in them what you already have inside you ~ The Shadow of the Wind
Books are mirrors, you only see in them what you already have inside you ~ The Shadow of the Wind
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sweetpotatoboy
- Bibliophile
- Posts: 1641
- Joined: August 2008
- Location: London, UK
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princess garnet
- Bibliophile
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- Joined: August 2008
- Location: Maryland
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LoveHistory
- Bibliomaniac
- Posts: 3751
- Joined: September 2008
- Location: Wisconsin, USA
- Contact:
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MLE (Emily Cotton)
- Bibliomaniac
- Posts: 3564
- Joined: August 2008
- Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
- Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
- Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
- Location: California Bay Area
