Writing the New Nation in a West African Borderland

Kate Skinner has a longstanding interest in issues of decolonisation and new nationhood in Africa. Her first book, The Fruits of Freedom in British Togoland (Cambridge University Press, 2015) examined the connections between literacy, formal education and networks of political activism in the Ghana-Togo borderlands. This gave rise to a broader interest in African-authored and African-language texts such as Ablɔɖe, which engaged in the work of nation-building. Kate is now working on West Africa's first coup d'état (which occurred in Togo in 1963) and on gender activism and the reform of family law in post-colonial Ghana.Wilson Yayoh is the Founding Director of the Centre for African and International Studies at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. His research addresses colonial policy in Africa, ethnicity and national identities, historical perspectives on democratisation in Africa, and Africa in world affairs. Articles by Wilson have been published in the International Journal of Research in the Humanities, the Contemporary Journal of African Studies, the Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies, the Journal of History and Cultures, the Ghana Social Science Journal, the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, and the Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. He is now working on a monograph entitled Contested Territory: Governing Colonial and Post-Colonial Ewedome (Ghana), c. 1922 to 1974.

• AcknowledgementsGlossaryThe Eve AlphabetMapPART 1: EDITORS' INTRODUCTIONI: PreambleII: An overview: Holiday Vincent Kwasi Komedja and his newspaperIII: The Aguawo: Asante invasion and the mission encounterIV: A historiographical intervention: Aguawo and approaches to empireVI: Coercion and coercion: the colonisation of AguVI: Petitioning against plantations: the particularities of protest in AguVII: The Togolese press: political history and regional print cultureVIII: Journalist-activists: newsprint and politics in the borderlandsIX: Writing the new nation: Ablɔɖe Safui and the work of citizenshipX: Ablɔɖe Safui is my name! Komedja as patriot and truth-tellerXI: Translating Ablɔɖe Safui: culture, communication and contextXII: ConclusionPART 2: ABLƆƉE SAFUI (THE KEY TO FREEDOM): 22 ISSUES, EACH WITH TRANSLATION AND COMMENTSA S6 of 31 March 1959AS 20 of 6 October 1959AS 21 of 27 October 1979AS 22 of 26 November 1959AS 23 of 26 February 1960AS 24 of 23 March 1960AS 25 of 13 April 1960AS 26 of 2 May 1960AS 27 of 20 May 1960AS 28 of 13 July 1960AS 29 of 11 November 1960AS 30 of 31 December 1960AS 31 of 28 January 1961AS 32 of 20 February 1961AS 34 of 20 April 1961AS 36 not datedAS 37 not datedAS 38 of 5 May 1962AS 39 of 11 July 1962AS 40 of 2 August 1962AS 49 of 2 May 1965AS 56 of 28 December 1965BibliographyIndex