CATALOGUE
January - June 2025
ABOUT AKAN BOOKS
Newly launched in September 2024, the Akan Books Imprint is led by author, broadcaster, and diversity advocate June Sarpong OBE. It seeks to remove barriers and make space for voices and stories that have been overlooked.
The imprint name is inspired by Sarpong’s own heritage. Sarpong’s ancestors descended from the West African Ashanti people, Akan. Drawing on the oral storytelling traditions of African and Caribbean folklore, the imprint colophon depicts Anansi the spider, a master storyteller, who revelled in creative resistance and liberation: the perfect character to spin a great story.
With the imprint’s identity and ethos firmly rooted in the origins of storytelling, Akan aims to find writers from underrepresented communities, with a focus on giving a voice to unpublished authors from:
Authors from ethnic minority backgrounds
Authors who identify as working class
Authors with disabilities akanbooks.co.uk
FICTION
978-0-00-855998-4
336pp
24 Apr 2025
Royal 234x153, Hardback
Subject
Readership General
Charlotte Paradise is a Disabled author and screenwriter with an MA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Her short films have been selected and award-winning at film festivals internationally. Overspill is her first novel.
Overspill
Charlotte Paradise
• Literary debut OVERSPILLmarries gorgeous, lyrical writing with an unflinching, visceral story about female bodies, trauma and how women navigate the world and relationships in a society that tells them how to feel about themselves and what to be ashamed of
• Charlotte is a fllmmaker and was selected by Disney Star Imagine for their UK Shorts Incubator. Her short film, Sleepyhead, was shown at BFI London Film Festival 2023
Tender, brutal, devastating, OVERSPILL is the debut novel from incredible new literary talent, Charlotte Paradise.
'This book will break your heart, mend it, and send you away with hope' Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb
Tender, brutal, devastating, OVERSPILL is the debut novel from incredible new literary talent, Charlotte Paradise.
'This book will break your heart, mend it, and send you away with hope' Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb
'Compulsive, intricate but never overwritten. Paradise brings the reader on a journey of both pleasure and pain' Madeline Docherty, author of Gender Theory
‘With fluid prose reminiscent of both Jessica Andrews' watercolour-esque writing and Coco Mellors' sculpted syntax, Paradise has created something remarkable’ Jessie Elland, author of The Ladies Upstairs
Sara is twenty-five. She has never used a tampon without having a panic attack.
She starts dating Miles. For three months, they don’t touch. Miles respects her boundaries, though he longs for them to melt away. Sara desires Miles, but she knows her body, or rather she knows it is an unknowable thing.
Sara wants to be in love, to find a person who allows her to be herself. Someone who is happy with everything she is and everything she isn’t. Miles hopes he won’t hurt her.
But how do you navigate a relationship for which there is no blueprint? How do you love someone when your body is not your own, and how do you reclaim it?
Overspill is a luminous, shattering debut about love, trauma and self-acceptance, perfect for fans of Sally Rooney and Coco Mellors.
978-0-00-865029-2
19 Jun 2025
£ 16.99
Subject
Readership General
Jenny Knight is a prize-winning writer of short story, fiction and memoir and a contributor to Kit de Waal’s celebrated Common People anthology. Jenny has taught creative writing in prisons, worked with storytellers/actors for the UN/Comic Relief in Somalia/Kenya, chaired and spoken on panels, and held workshops about writing, rejection and resilience. She has a degree in English Lit & Drama, and studied Creative Writing at UEA. She has also worked on farms, in pubs, factories, as a roadie, a short-term temp in the 80s music industry in London, and renovated a former pigsty.
Wild Moon Rising
Jenny Knight
• The debut novel from an exciting new voice in literary fiction.
• A coming-of-age novel with a difference: centring a woman in her 50s as she creates a new life for herself post-menopause and post-marriage.
• A celebration of women’s desire and ambition, and a love letter to the friendships that sustain us
A powerful and moving debut novel about coming of age again post-marriage and post-menopause.
Claire's life isn't how she thought it would be when she moves into Hunter's Moon. Her long marriage is over, her children have flown the nest, and her work as an illustrator no longer satisfies her. She isn't sure who she is now or what she wants from her life.
It wasn't always like this. Once, she had desires and ambitions.
When her octogenarian neighbour, Tansy, suffers a fall, Claire’s solitude is broken. Under the older woman’s guidance, she finds solace and a new sense of purpose in regenerating her wild garden. And as the plants grow, Claire retreads the bittersweet journey that brought her to the second half of her life.
This is a story of love. Of friendship and desire, of art and nature, of finding love for yourself and for life itself. It is a story of coming of age, once again, of giving up one’s safety net and embracing a new life beyond.
'A beautifully written tale of women who dare to dream, desire, change course, and make demands. Writing with quiet wisdom and humour, Jenny Knight gives her readers real insights into the way women live their lives.' Elissa Soave, author of Graffiti Girls
‘I loved Wild Moon Rising – it is passionate, powerful and a wonderful exemplar of how we Queenagers come into our power and wisdom in midlife. When everything we once were falls away there is space for something new, exciting and beautiful to flourish. What a book! What a writer!’ Eleanor Mills, author of Much More to Come
NON-FICTION
978-0-00-860388-5
27 Feb 2025
£ 20.00
Calling Una Marson The Extraordinary Life of a Forgotten Icon
June Sarpong and Jennifer Obidike
A powerful biography shining a light on the incredible forgotten legacy of the BBC’s first Black female broadcaster
The forgotten legacy of an icon, brought to light for the first time.
Una Marson was a true trailblazer: she made history by becoming the first Black female broadcaster at the BBC and paved the way for Black women and the amplification of Black voices in the media. Despite all this, though, her story has been all but forgotten by history.
A journalist, poet, playwright, broadcaster and activist, Una Marson played a pivotal role in bringing Caribbean culture to audiences in the UK, smashing glass ceilings and fighting against the racism and misogyny she faced.
Marson was a fierce political activist throughout her life, and in this rigorously researched and deeply personal biography, the life and achievements of this extraordinary, complex and multifaceted person will be told in full for the first time.
Subject
Readership
Biography and autobiography
General
June Sarpong OBE is one of the most recognizable British television presenters and broadcasters, as well as being a prominent activist, having co-founded the WIE Network (Women: Inspiration and Enterprise) and the Decide Act Now summit. In 2019, she was appointed the first ever ‘Director of Creative Diversity’ at the BBC.
Jennifer Obidike is an American ghost-writer and co-writer who has been living in London for more than a decade. She has worked with Penguin Random House and HarperCollins and runs a freelance editorial service called Let Me Read For You, where she offers structural editing on non-fiction and fiction, and coaches women to write first drafts of books that have been brewing in their minds for years.
Praise for Diversify
‘Engaging and informative … June Sarpong examines the research behind diversity and discrimination while grounding them in personal narratives, highlighting our common humanity.’ Kofi Annan, co-recipient of the NobelPeacePrize
‘I am so glad June Sarpong is working on this matter of diversity. We don't seem to know how to handle differences. When will we learn that we share one common humanity as Shakespeare's Shylock declared so eloquently?’ Desmond Tutu
‘My experiences during the Holocaust has led me on a lifetime mission to promote the benefits of diversity … telling my story and that of my step-sister Anne Frank and why civil society must do all it can to protect and celebrate our diversity. Diversify helps us take the first steps on the journey to tolerance.’ Eva Schloss MBE
“A passionately written polemic” YouMagazine
‘How boring would life be without diversity? A case of the bland leading the bland. Life would be pretty … dull without [my autistic son’s] literal, lateral, tangential take on the world … Mozart, Orwell, Van Gough, Warhol and many other amazing artists, scientists and musicians were on the autistic spectrum. And yet only 15% of autistic people are in the workforce. If only we would learn to think outside the neurotypical box’ Kathy Lette
‘An engaging read with lots of important and good ideas’ Stylist
‘May prove to be our handbook to negotiate these troubled times’ Psychologies
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