Africa, Before and After Colonization
Like a Candle in the Darkness, the Past Can Illume the Future. Outskirts Press is pleased to bring you Triangle Within a Circle, a new novel by Geoffrey Kofi Akuamoa that mixtures history and fantasy as it traces the adventures of a Portuguese family that settles on the West African coast in the fifteenth century. Garriguesz, a deprived sailor, persuades his sons Figo and Raul to sail with him from the city of Porto, in Portugal, to explore the unknown waters of the Atlantic.
On the Atlantic Ocean, they drifted away in our small ship from Porto, Portugal, vanishing into the open Atlantic Ocean sailing toward Africa. They were only three. Figo, twenty-one, learned much about navigation from his father and had learned a great deal of knowledge from his grandparents' intellectual abilities, their explorations and distinctive pioneering. They did not struggle with fears because Figo`s father was very knowledgeable. They were prepared and had illusions that there was something out there......
Their journeys eventually bring them to the wealthy and exotic region of Edina, on the West Coast of Africa, to what is today modern Ghana. They choose to stay amongst the beautiful and good-hearted people. Garriguesz and his sons experience the riches of life in Africa, and learn about the origins of the people, their languages and their lifestyles, ever captivated by the metamorphoses in customs, flora and fauna from their native land. "The past defines our lives and brings meaning--the configuration of people on planet Earth did not take shape overnight, but passed through meaningful transformations." For Akuamoa, the circle represents the globe and the triangle symbolizes the people who live within it.
Through the story of Garriguesz and his offspring, Akuamoa is able to show how encounters between people of the "old" world and the "new" bring about new ideas and change the course of human evolution. "Triangle affectionately recreates and captures the brightness of the region, the rise and fall of kingdoms, the decline of empires; mysticism, the supernatural, and superstition are all interwoven with wisdom," says Akuamoa. Triangle Within a Circle traces the family through the centuries, ending in the 1950s, with the Independence of Ghana and the immediate aftermath. It is a stunning tale of beauty, one that urges its readers to look for some centre of deepening knowledge and meaning in life, to discover the role each individual on earth is meant to play.
