Bitter Sweet

Description

The kola nut is a seed indigenous to West Africa, chewed by ancient caravan travellers to survive their harsh desert journeys, the ‘Cola’ in Coca-Cola. From Senegal to Cameroon, it is woven into community life, customs and cuisine.

Searching for stories about this caffeine-rich seed to better understand her West African home, acclaimed author Ayesha Harruna Attah takes readers along the Niger River, through the red sands of the Sahel and across the Atlantic Ocean. She traces her family’s roots as kola traders and cultivators in Ghana’s forests and savannah. Encountering craftspeople, cultural custodians and descendants of enslaved people who travelled with kola to the Americas, she discovers what this unique commodity reveals about identity and tradition—and about the region’s place in a messy, interconnected world. Along the way, she begins to fall in love with West Africa.

Blending history, travelogue and cultural exploration, Attah shows us that after that first bitter bite of kola always comes sweetness.

Reviews

‘Bitter Sweet is a fascinating, sumptuous, revelatory, intricate and stunningly original tapestry that offers new visions of memoir, history, travel, trade, commerce, culture and spirituality.’ — Bernardine Evaristo

‘Ayesha Attah makes the web of ancient cultures embedded in the kola nut as real as the trade routes they still travel—a mesmerising and personal history.’ — Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish)

‘This ambitious work of memoir, botany and history takes readers on a magical journey throughout West Africa. Everywhere that Bitter Sweet lands, it shares lessons on love, war, kinship and the connections that bind us together.’ — Jori Lewis, author of Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History

‘A captivating blend of community and personal history that breathes life into a crop that I had only ever encountered in West African literature and history. An unforgettable text that everyone interested in the region should pick up.’ — Nanjala Nyabola, author of Travelling While Black

‘A truly exciting and wonderfully constructed book that captures history and culture in an innovative way. A genuine joy to read, packed full of delightful surprises.’ — Dipo Faloyin, author of Africa Is Not a Country

‘A triumph of storytelling. Merging deeply reported history, vibrant travelogue and intimate memoir, Attah traces the profound journey of the kola nut across West Africa while weaving in her own extraordinary ancestral lineage—from an enslaved ancestor in Salaga to the formidable Asantehene Osei Bonsu. Luminous, expansive and utterly compelling, this is essential reading for anyone who loves history, culture and a master storyteller at the absolute peak of her powers.’ — Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of Seeking Sexual Freedom and The Sex Lives of African Women

‘A fascinating account of West Africa’s past and present, tracing the vital economic, social and political history of kola, the caffeine-rich African nut that provided an ingredient and a name to the famous beverage.’ — Hakim Adi, author of Pan-Africanism: A History

‘Fantastic, original and magical. Attah illuminates the little known or understood story of the kola nut and its centrality in West African history, identity and tradition.’ — Paul Lovejoy, author of Caravans of Kola: The Hausa Kola Trade, 1700–1900

‘A beautifully written, fun and fascinating history for both the general reader and the specialist. Bitter Sweet connects West Africa in a way that many books do not.’ — Edmund Abaka, author of Kola is God’s Gift

‘An important work that connects the universality of the human condition across West African communities while drawing the reader in and keeping them hooked to the very end.’ — Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, author of Media, Culture, and Decolonization: Re-righting the Subaltern Histories of Ghana

Author(s)

Ayesha Harruna Attah is the author of five novels, including The Hundred Wells of Salaga, a William Saroyan International Prize for Writing finalist. As the Rolex Perpetual Arts Initiative 2023–24 literature protégée, she was mentored by Bernardine Evaristo. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Elle Italia and other media. Born and raised in Ghana, she lives in Senegal.