It's a rare person who can be both funny and wise at the same time. Yet that is exactly the way to describe Nana Awere Damoah's writings in this small but compelling short story collection about contemporary life in Ghana. In it the reader will find Ghanaman in traffic, or Ghanawoman paying the corrupt policeman. Either way, one knows these are the words of a master story teller who handily blurs the lines between laughing so hard it makes one cry, or crying so hard it makes one laugh. I Speak of Ghana is an honest journey of deft oration replete with the sounds (from the harmonious to the cacophonic), smells (including the pleasant and unpleasant), sights (from the eye-catching to the embarrassing), frustrations, triumphs and the mundane - everything that makes the Ghanaian experience finds its way into this book. Unlike the typical ranting about Ghanaian situations, Nana performs an insightful examination of the heart of the matter. Dissimilar to empty praise, Nana thoroughly embraces the issues that give us hope as people connected to Ghana. Narrated with humor, the book is Nana's eloquence at its best.

If anyone can paint a vivid image with words, breathe life into a collection of alphabets, create a vivid imagination in one's mind with intricately and well woven tales brewed in the Ghanaian soot-coated aluminium cooking pot, then it is Nana Awere Damoah. This collection of short stories is an embodiment of class, style, humor, sarcasm, truth, knowledge, religion, self-realization and inspiration. Tales from Different Tails is a must-have book for every literature addict, anyone looking for a new lease of life in African literature and the general reading populace.