The Carpenter of Fantasy Coffins
A Novel of Accra

About this book:

In the dust-scented workshops of 1990s Teshie, master carpenter Kwesi Amankwah doesn't build coffins—he carves final testaments. A fisherman sails eternity in a mahogany canoe; a cocoa farmer rests inside a seven-foot golden pod; a tailor stitches his last seam in a wooden Singer machine complete with spinning treadle wheel. Each commission is a puzzle of wood and memory, demanding not just joinery but an intuitive grasp of the life it must honor.

With the rhythm of highlife guitar drifting from neighboring radios and the Gulf breeze carrying salt through open shutters, Kwesi navigates the weight of tradition, the impatience of a gifted daughter, the mischief of a sleep-deprived apprentice, and the relentless negotiation of grieving families who know exactly what their loved ones deserve. Every grain of wawa, every curve of mahogany, every stroke of gold leaf becomes an act of translation—turning flesh-and-blood stories into vessels that will survive the earth.

*The Carpenter of Fantasy Coffins* is a novel steeped in the textures of Accra: the sweet rot of plantain peels, the clatter of tro-tros, the sharp bite of akpeteshie, the quiet pride of a craft that refuses to let death have the last word. Here, mortality is not an ending but a final commission—exquisitely measured, deeply human, and built to carry the weight of a life well-lived.