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"Ms. Edwards has written a very
fascinating and interesting book. She sets her story in two of
the most significant places in the African and African-American
experience: Charleston, South Carolina and Ghana, West Africa.
These are two places with which Africans and Americans of African
descent have many ancestral and emotional ties because of their
connections to the slave trade, Gullah-geechee culture, Pan-Africanism,
and African independence movements.
The novel focuses primarily on the love
relationship that developed between a native of Charleston and
a Ghanaian attending the College of Charleston. The setting of
the novel alternates back and forth from Charleston to Accra,
Ghana.
The romance is paralleled by the rise
of the regime of Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings as Ghana's ruler
after a coup in 1979. This seemingly insider's view of the 1979
coup makes the book more than just a tale of obsessive love and
eventual marriage..."
Dr. William Marvin Dulaney, - Director
of the Avery Research Center African-American Museum, Charleston,
South Carolina
"Missionary" follows the adventures
of Naomi, a beautiful College of Charleston student who travels
to Africa and finds herself in the middle of a military coup.
Naomi convinces her strict, southern Baptist parents that she
heard God's calling to become a missonary so they would let her
travel to Ghana. She neglects to tell them that she's in love
with Emmanuel Edrah, a Ghanaian student she has been secretly
dating.
This poignant tale explores the love of God, family, friends,
first love and revolutionary love. The author weaves historical
events with fictional characters so well that the reader feels
an instant familiarity.
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