Real name, Mohammed Inusah, a son of Nima, one of Ghana’s main inner cities – popularly referred to as Zongo. Mention his real name and you are likely to find it hard to get him.
The young, lively man is known more by an alias, Maazi Okoro, a name of an elderly Nigerian. Young as he is, Maazi Okoro reverberates more with him than his real name.
For his 5,000 Facebook friends and followers, Maazi Okoro is a books person. Barely a day goes by without him posting the photo of a book – one that he is reading, one that he may have just delivered to a client or one that he was recommending.
When it comes to book, he is simply the go-to guy. He loves to read, he loves to sell, he loves to discuss books and he loves to write on the side, his blog is equally quite popular.
He shares his experiences with books over the years and what aspirations he seeks going into the future. Crucially, he talks about the impact of social media in his endeavours and the Success Book Club initiative.
In the first of a two-part interview, we hear about how his love for reading started and the impact it's had on him. We also take a peek into Success Book Club and also get to know his top three African and foreign authors.
How the love for reading kicked off - Mother, a school, grandpa and a big brother
My love for books started from when I remember my mum, a teacher now at Oda grabbing me books to read. I still remember her buying me these nursery rhyme books and some of the various fairy tales. Gingerbread man, Three little pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella.
My personal favorite was the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Growing up, the school St. Cecilia’s Basic School then one of the best schools in Accra had a positive reading atmosphere with a lot of books in the library. I graduated from the fairy tales to be that young schoolboy who was reading books ‘above’ his level.
My favorite book then was a book titled The Invisible Man. One grandfather of mine who pushed us to read bought another book The Three Devils and other stories for us. That became my local favorite then. By JHS, I had read a considerable number of the African Writers Series, Burning Desire etc.
So I loved reading from childhood. We used to skip makaranta (weekend Islamic school) to go the Nima-Maamobi community library (children section).
But I started active reading, reading for impact when I met Mahmoud Jajah in 2007 and the first book he gave me was Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela’s Autobiography). What lifted everything was The Autobiography of Malcolm X he gave me in 2010.
Top three authors - Africa and overseas
Top three African authors
1. Chinua Achebe, Nigerian great
2. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president
3. Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Kenya and African literary colossus
4. Manasseh Azure Awuni, a Ghanaian journalist, author.
Foreigners
1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. Robin Sharma
3. John C. Maxwell
About Success Book Club
In the words of Inusah: "Success Book Club is an organization formed to give the youth a platform to develop themselves and make a monumental impact in their communities and world at large."
As its name suggests, it is built on principles of sharing the reading culture. It has quite a following as they meet to dilate on selected reading materials.
Despite initiatives like this, Inusah maintains that Ghana’s reading culture is still nothing to write home about.
He tells us more about his worry for reading, about how he started selling books, the challenges of selling books and the impact of social media on his book sales.
Till then, Maazi Okoro doesn't look like retreating on doing what he loves doing: sharing book related information with people with the view to in part motivate them to read, to buy and or to share the word - the reading gospel.
The young, lively man is known more by an alias, Maazi Okoro, a name of an elderly Nigerian. Young as he is, Maazi Okoro reverberates more with him than his real name.
For his 5,000 Facebook friends and followers, Maazi Okoro is a books person. Barely a day goes by without him posting the photo of a book – one that he is reading, one that he may have just delivered to a client or one that he was recommending.
When it comes to book, he is simply the go-to guy. He loves to read, he loves to sell, he loves to discuss books and he loves to write on the side, his blog is equally quite popular.
He shares his experiences with books over the years and what aspirations he seeks going into the future. Crucially, he talks about the impact of social media in his endeavours and the Success Book Club initiative.
In the first of a two-part interview, we hear about how his love for reading started and the impact it's had on him. We also take a peek into Success Book Club and also get to know his top three African and foreign authors.
How the love for reading kicked off - Mother, a school, grandpa and a big brother
My love for books started from when I remember my mum, a teacher now at Oda grabbing me books to read. I still remember her buying me these nursery rhyme books and some of the various fairy tales. Gingerbread man, Three little pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella.
My personal favorite was the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Growing up, the school St. Cecilia’s Basic School then one of the best schools in Accra had a positive reading atmosphere with a lot of books in the library. I graduated from the fairy tales to be that young schoolboy who was reading books ‘above’ his level.
My favorite book then was a book titled The Invisible Man. One grandfather of mine who pushed us to read bought another book The Three Devils and other stories for us. That became my local favorite then. By JHS, I had read a considerable number of the African Writers Series, Burning Desire etc.
So I loved reading from childhood. We used to skip makaranta (weekend Islamic school) to go the Nima-Maamobi community library (children section).
But I started active reading, reading for impact when I met Mahmoud Jajah in 2007 and the first book he gave me was Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela’s Autobiography). What lifted everything was The Autobiography of Malcolm X he gave me in 2010.
Top three authors - Africa and overseas
Top three African authors
1. Chinua Achebe, Nigerian great
2. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president
3. Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Kenya and African literary colossus
4. Manasseh Azure Awuni, a Ghanaian journalist, author.
Foreigners
1. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. Robin Sharma
3. John C. Maxwell
About Success Book Club
In the words of Inusah: "Success Book Club is an organization formed to give the youth a platform to develop themselves and make a monumental impact in their communities and world at large."
As its name suggests, it is built on principles of sharing the reading culture. It has quite a following as they meet to dilate on selected reading materials.
Despite initiatives like this, Inusah maintains that Ghana’s reading culture is still nothing to write home about.
He tells us more about his worry for reading, about how he started selling books, the challenges of selling books and the impact of social media on his book sales.
Till then, Maazi Okoro doesn't look like retreating on doing what he loves doing: sharing book related information with people with the view to in part motivate them to read, to buy and or to share the word - the reading gospel.
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