Books from The Gambia

Folk Tales and Fables from The Gambia is a second volume of traditional stories collected by Dembo Fanta Bojang and Sukai Mbye Bojang. It gathers myths and fables from across the country's communities. One is the well-known legend of Massaneh Ceesay and Bakary Niuminko, rivals for the hand of a young Banjulian woman named Fatou, each seeking help from marabouts, Muslim religious figures credited with spiritual power.

Another tale follows Koochi Barama, a figure known across Gambian ethnic groups. He was a childhood friend of the king of Sabach and lived with his two wives, and his story traces how lies and betrayal can damage close relationships. A further account describes the respected bond between the kings of Niamanty and Burawulay, rulers who exchanged experience and formed alliances. When the king of Niamanty died, his friend was consulted on his estate.

The Gambia is a narrow country that follows the lower Gambia River through West Africa, with Banjul at its mouth. Written collections such as this one set down narratives that have long been carried by speech, keeping names, places, and family disputes attached to particular towns and kingdoms.

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I Come from A Country is a poetry collection by Tijan M. Sallah, a Gambian writer whose work draws on both the specific textures of life in The Gambia and broader human concerns. The poems move between close observation of everyday scenes and wider reflections on political and social realities across Africa and beyond. Sallah writes with a steady, purposeful voice, finding moments of change and meaning inside ordinary experience.

The collection has received praise from notable poets. George Szirtes, a recipient of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the James Tait Black Prize, described Sallah as an important poet whose imagination captures the transformations present in daily life. Fred Chappell, winner of the Bollingen Prize and the T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing, highlighted the sense of purpose running through the poems and called the volume a beacon.

The Gambia, one of the smallest countries on the African continent, follows the course of the Gambia River inland from the Atlantic coast. Sallah's title frames the collection around a sense of place and belonging, grounding even his most far-reaching poems in a specific point of origin. The book was published under ISBN 978-1569027646.

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On her eighteenth birthday in The Gambia, Ayodele decides to lose her virginity. She has narrowed her options to three: Reuben, a safe and familiar choice; Yuan, a schoolfriend she has long admired; and Frederick Adams, a 42-year-old man who happens to be her best friend's father. The novel follows each of these choices forward in time, tracing how a single decision on a single night sets Ayodele's life on a completely different course.

One path leads her to Europe for university and a changed sense of self, though not without considerable pain. Another sends her across the world on a longer, more disorienting route that reshapes who she is at a steep personal cost. A third keeps her in Africa, where she becomes a wife and mother inside a polygamous household. Dayo Forster constructs these three narratives in parallel, giving each version of Ayodele's life its own texture and pressures.

The structure turns a coming-of-age premise into something closer to a study of chance and consequence. Set against the social landscape of The Gambia and locations abroad, the book examines how geography, relationships, and timing shape a life in ways that cannot be predicted at the moment of choosing.

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The Gambian Cookbook is a recipe collection rooted in the food traditions of The Gambia, a narrow West African country that follows the course of the Gambia River and is surrounded on three sides by Senegal. Authors Michele Daryanani and Shakhil Shah grew up in The Gambia and shaped their cooking around the dishes they encountered through family and friends during those early years. The book gathers recipes they describe as typical of Gambian home cooking alongside personal favourites developed over time.

The Gambia is sometimes called the smiling coast, a nickname tied to its short Atlantic coastline and the reputation of its people for warmth toward visitors. Its cuisine draws on West African staples such as rice, fish, groundnuts (peanuts), and palm oil, combined in stews, grilled dishes, and one-pot meals that reflect both local agriculture and the country's position along historic trade routes. The cookbook aims to make these dishes accessible to readers elsewhere in the world, offering a window into a kitchen tradition that remains relatively underrepresented in published cookbooks. By compiling recipes from multiple families, the authors present a broader picture of everyday Gambian food rather than the perspective of a single household.

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Nyima grows up in a village in The Gambia, where girls are expected to follow a narrow path toward early marriage and motherhood. As a child, she is subjected to female genital mutilation, a practice that leaves lasting physical harm. The story follows her efforts to find a way forward in circumstances that offer little encouragement or choice.

Sally Sadie Singhateh, a Gambian author, centers the novel on Nyima's determination to pursue education and work as a means of rebuilding her life. The book traces how she confronts the damage of what she has endured while trying to shape something different for herself. Questions of trust and the possibility of love remain unresolved pressures throughout the narrative, set against the social expectations of her community.

The setting grounds the story in a specific West African context, where cultural norms and personal ambition collide. Singhateh writes about forced practices and their consequences in direct terms, keeping the focus on Nyima's perspective and her capacity to act within a constrained world. The tension between surviving the past and imagining a future gives the novel its central shape.

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