This book rethinks the history of decolonisation and new nationhood in the Ghana-Togo borderlands, and speaks to an increasingly urgent debate on the production of knowledge about Africa. It does this through the close reading, translation and analysis of a unique primary source - a newspaperentitled Ablode (meaning "the Key to Freedom").Ablode was initiated and sustained by a shoemaker named Holiday V. K. Komedja, and written almost entirely in his mother-tongue, Eve. Whilst many studies of nationalism have highlighted the importance of anti-colonial newspapers, this volume is unique - in its intensive focus on a singleAfrican-language newspaper, in providing translations of entire issues, and in following the story of decolonisation into the era of new nationhood. The manner in which Komedja recounted and explained political events challenges existing scholarly accounts of the rise and fall of Togo's firstindependent government, and of ethnic nationalisms and local loyalties within new nation-states. In re-reading the history of the Ghana-Togo borderlands through the pages of Ablode, this volume demonstrates that intensive inter-disciplinary engagement with specific African-language texts is indispensable to the meaningful study of Africa and Africans in global history. | Writing the New Nation in a West African Borderland by Kate Skinner, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters