Man-Man and the Tree of Memories

by Yaba Badoe

Set in contemporary Notting Hill, Man-man and his friends are swept up in the exuberant preparations for carnival. But his mother is ill and even as he dances, he calls desperately to the Queen of Revels, as old as time to make her well again.

Swept away with his best friend Kareem and sharp-tongued sister Panama, to a place in between, the Queen of Revels plunges Man-man into Africa's past and reveals his family's heritage. As they gather around the sacred Tree of Memories, he witnesses many slaves, captives whose pain and anguish and longing is held by the tree. Man-man understands how this is draining his mother and how he must help her back to the freedom stolen from his ancestors

Audible Audio

Published November 2, 2023

About the author

Yaba Badoe is an award-winning Ghanaian-British documentary film-maker and writer. A graduate of King's College Cambridge, she was a civil servant in Ghana before becoming a general trainee with the BBC. She has taught in Spain and Jamaica and worked as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. Her short stories have been published in Critical Quarterly, African Love Stories, an anthology edited by Ama Ata Aidoo, and Daughters of Africa.
Yaba lives in Balham, London with her husband Colin Izod.