The Centre for Intellectual Renewal, The British Council (Ghana) and the Ayebia Clarke Publishing in the United Kingdom will jointly launch two books in Accra on January 15 2008 at the British Council at 4pm and also reflect, through the event, language and its role in culture. The books are the second edition of Bu Me Be: Proverbs of the Akans, a 336 page dictionary of proverbs and the most comprehensive since 1879 when the German missionary J. G. Christaller first published a collection of its kind. It is by the late distinguished children novelist, Peggy Appiah, a world leading philosopher and currently at Princeton University, Kwame Anthony Appiah and the Ghanaian author, Ivor Agyeman-Duah. The second book is Pan-Africanism Caribbean Connections published by iUniverse Press of the United States and is an international anthology of essays by four scholars of The Africa Studies and Research Forum of Washington, DC. They are the leading Linguistics and International Relations professor, Abdul Bangura who is currently at Howard University, history professor Mario D. Fenyo of the University of Debrecen in Hungry, professor of Social Ethics at University of Denver, Jim Perkinson and the Ghanaian scholar and author, Ivor Agyeman-Duah. The book deals with the African legacy of Caribbean societies. It shows how literary works and practices have highlighted the relations between Africans in the continent and those in the Diaspora and the interconnections among their social institutions.

It is published almost after a quarter of a century when a similar attempt of Caribbean reflections by a group of scholars resulted in Africa and the Caribbean: The legacies of a Link, edited by Margaret Grahan and Franklin W. Knight.

The Minister of Chieftaincy and Culture, Hon. S.K. Boafo would launch the books which would have as its major speaker, Prof. Emeritus J.H. Kwabena Nketia, living authority on Akan language and culture and currently Director of the International Music Centre at Legon. He will speak to the topic, Sound and Sentiments: the Lyrical Use of Proverbs.

The Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Prof. Takyiwah Manuh would chair the event