Man's Inhumanity To Women

Several years ago I read the manuscript of a stunning novel about the eighteenth century slave trade in Africa and the Americas. Although E-Reads' stock in trade is reissues of previously published books, not new and unpublished ones, this one was so absorbing that I was compelled to make an exception. That's how we came to publish our first original work of fiction, Ama by Ghanian author Manu Herbstein. The judges of the annual Commonwealth Prize concurred with my judgment and awarded it the prize for Best First Book of 2002.

It chronicles the life of Nandzi, who is given the name "Ama", a name strange to her tribal culture. Abducted with her little brother from her village, thrust into a foreign land and stripped of her identity, she is forced into a life of bondage, violence and brutality. Yet she never lets herself lose her core humanity. Her entrancing story of defiance starts from the day she is brutally seized and raped. But she is smart enough to learn the language of her captors, and it becomes her ticket to freedom. The courage and resilience of Ama's spirit engrossed me from the first page to the last, and I'm very proud to have played a part in bringing it into the world.

- Richard Curtis