In the matter of personal experience, I am qualified to write about Africa & about America as well. In me, the phrase "African-American" is alive with vivid experiences. I have spent equal halves of my eventful life in Africa & in the USA. I have citizenship in both worlds & have been uniquely impacted by both through bouts of traumatic experiences. Presently & continuing, one-America-gets to house my body; the other-Africa- my soul. In the ensuing strange marriage of the two cultures, the line between the bride & bridegroom is fluid at best. I can, therefore, constructively praise &/or criticize both, interchangeably, w/ civilized equanimity & without fear, favor/shame. I can "Toast" the Bride, specific circumstance warranting.

The book is to inform & to query alike. Although the material presented is predominantly a product of the African culture, it is not parochially African in its view of human life & Nature; nor in the content of the personal experiences presented. The book draws heavily from the literary wisdoms of philosophers to articulate the language & extract a body of knowledge suitable for describing, & coincidental to expressing, the deeper side of personal life experiences. It also juxtaposes traditional African spiritual idealism with modern American material realism to establish context.

The reader is not to equate the different chapters as simple matching titles of the knowledge they contain. Although these chapters are meaningful & intelligible in themselves, the reader is persuaded to accumulate them progressively as the background necessary for understanding the relation of each to the whole.

Toasting the Bride challenges the reader to know more about certain naked hypocrisies of the American legal system & to formulate educated personal opinions about the American social culture and to imbibe some universal lessons of life by partaking in the more vivid accounts of my personal experiences; & by pondering on the harder questions of living.

Toasting the Bride - pokkari, Englanti, 2003