Gulf of Maine Books is hosting a reading by author Patrick Asare at 7 p.m. on June 1 at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. Asare will read from and discuss his book “The Boy from Boadua: One African’s Journey of Hunger and Sacrifice in Pursuit of a Dream.”
This autobiographical memoir follows Asare’s journey from a small village in Ghana, where he was raised in a large, impoverished family in a community where no one aspired to be educated beyond middle school. But Asare had a larger vision for his life. The book follows his story as he gets an education in Ghana, then goes to the Soviet Union for higher education, first in Moscow and then in Ukraine, in Kyiv and Donetsk. He is in Kyiv when the Chernobyl accident happens and in the Soviet Union during perestroika. After graduating with a degree in engineering and a full study of the Russian language, Asare makes his way to America, eventually earning degrees from Purdue and Tuck School of business.
Raised by a loving and supportive family, and living in a society where race was not an issue, he arrives in America. Teaching in inner-city high schools alerts him to the particular challenges faced by America’s urban Black youth and by immigrant and refugee populations.
“This book is not only a narrative of my journey but also a reflection on issues such as race, socio-economic status, education, culture, the importance of role models and some of the differences in social structures between Ghana and America that cause similarly situated schools to function differently in those two countries,” Asare said in a prepared release.
“Given everything that I have learned about American society in my three decades in this country, I am convinced that in some respects, I am lucky to have grown up in Ghana. Thousands of poor American children live in neighborhoods so violent that a safe passage to schools is not assured. On top of that are the myriad socio-cultural and other systems factors that conspire to rob youngsters of normal childhoods. I was fortunate not to have to contend with these challenges while growing up in Ghana.”
One reviewer of Asare’s book said that this “unlikely and astonishing journey from the child of a subsistence farmer in Ghana to a successful corporate professional with a beautiful family in America is truly fascinating and awe-inspiring. This is a story of inspiration, grit and resilience that teaches all of us to continue to work toward our biggest dreams.”
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Gulf of Maine Books at 729-5083.
Asare will also be doing a public reading at Longfellow Books in Portland at 5:15 p.m. on June 3.
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