African Writing in English

                                                           African Writing in English

Dinesen, Isak, pseudonym of Baroness Karen Christence Blixen-Finecke, née Dinesen (1885-1962), Danish writer, born in Rungsted. She studied painting in various European cities. In 1914 she married her cousin, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, and went to live in British East Africa (now Kenya) on a coffee plantation. After her divorce in 1921 she remained in Africa, returning to Denmark in 1931. Her first book of stories, Seven Gothic Tales (1934), dealt in highly polished and subtle prose with the world of the supernatural, as did most of her later fiction. Out of Africa (1937), which was made into a movie released in 1985, was based on her experiences on the plantation. Her only novel, The Angelic Avengers (1944; trans. 1947), was published under the name Pierre Andrézel; it describes in allegorical terms the plight of Denmark during the German occupation in World War II. Dinesen's later works include Winter's Tales (1943); Last Tales (1957), another collection of stories of the supernatural; and Shadows on the Grass (1960), Sketches of African life. She wrote both the Danish version and the English version of all her works.

Doris Lessing is one of the most prolific and celebrated authors writing in English today. Her work ranges from realistic early novels, many of which draw directly from her African childhood, to later books that experiment with literary genre (including science fiction) and form. In addition, Lessing has written poetry, drama, nonfiction, and a series of memoirs. Deeply influenced by her early exposure to racial, class, and sexual inequality, Lessing raises in her writing questions about politics, society, religion, work, and family—meditations at the heart of her most influential work, The Golden Notebook (1962).After two marriages and two divorces, in 1949 Lessing moved from Salisbury (the Southern Rhodesian capital, now Harare, Zimbabwe) to London, England, taking with her only the youngest of her three children. She also brought the manuscript that would become her first novel, The Grass is Singing (1950). Literary success came quickly; over the next ten years, Lessing published four more novels, in addition to stories, plays, reviews, and essays. She gained a reputation as a writer whose work probed both the personal and the political—particularly for women.. Along with her interest in racial and gender politics and intergenerational relationships, Lessing began to draw from the teachings of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam. Hints of the supernatural in the series' last entry are expanded in the five-volume science-fiction series Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979-1983). Later novels include The Good Terrorist (1985), The Fifth Child (1988), and Love, Again (1996); works focused on Africa include Collected African Stories (1973), African Laughter (1992), and Going Home (1996). Lessing has also published two volumes of her ongoing autobiography, Under my Skin (1994) and Walking in the Shade (1997). Critics praise Lessing's fierce, unsentimental honesty and her unique imagination, and many consider her one of the finest novelists writing in English today.

Césaire, Aimé (1913- ), innovative Martinican poet, playwright, and political leader, a founder of the Négritude movement and one of the most important black authors writing in French in the 20th century. As a historical movement, Négritude received two competing interpretations. Césaire's original conception sees the specificity and unity of black existence as a historically developing phenomenon that arose through the highly contingent events of the African slave trade and New World plantation system. This formulation was gradually displaced in intellectual debate by Senghor's essentialist interpretation of Négritude, which argues for an unchanging core or essence to black existence. As this later formulation gained currency, it was widely attacked, all the more so as Senghor, then president of an independent Senegal, came to use the term ideologically to justify his own political platform. Senghor's Négritude nonetheless served to reverse the system of values that had informed Western perception of blacks since the earliest voyages of discovery to Africa. Césaire's developmental model of Négritude, on the other hand, continues to offer a model for the ongoing project of black liberation in all its fullness, at once spiritual and political.

Achebe, Chinua (1930- ), Nigerian author, whose novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is one of the most widely read and discussed works of African fiction. In his first novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe retold the history of colonization from the point of view of the colonized. The novel depicted the first contact between the Igbo people and European missionaries and administrators. Since its publication, Things Fall Apart has generated a wealth of literary criticism grappling with Achebe's unsentimental representations of tradition, religion, manhood, and the colonial experience. Immediately successful, the novel secured Achebe's position both in Nigeria and in the West as a preeminent voice among Africans writing in English. Achebe subsequently wrote several novels that spanned more than a century of African history. Although most of these works deal specifically with Nigeria, they are also emblematic of what Achebe calls the "metaphysical landscape" of Africa, "a view of the world and of the whole cosmos perceived from a particular position." No Longer at Ease (1960) tells the story of a young man sent by his village to study overseas who then returns to a government job in Nigeria only to find himself in a culturally fragmented world. As the young man sinks into materialism and corruption, Achebe represents a new generation caught in a moral and spiritual conflict between the modern and the traditional. Arrow of God (1964) returns to the colonial period of 1920s Nigeria. In this novel, Achebe focuses on a theme that underscores all of his work: the wielding of power and its deployment for the good or harm of a community. A Man of the People (1966), a work Achebe has characterized as "an indictment of independent Africa," is set in the context of the emerging African nation-state. Representing a nation thought to be based on Nigeria, Achebe portrays the vacuum of true leadership left by the destruction of the governance provided by the traditional village. Achebe's critical political commentary continues in Anthills of the Savannah (1987), in which he uses a complex mythical structure to depict an African nation passing into the shadow of a military dictatorship. Achebe helped found a publishing company in Nigeria with poet Christopher Okigbo and in 1971 was a founding editor for the prominent African literary magazine Okike. In addition, he published children's books and award-winning poetry collections. Responding to critics such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, who point to the political and cultural implications of writing in the colonial language, Achebe has defended his use of English, asserting that as a "medium of international exchange," the language is a lingua franca (common language) that will connect the communities of Africa."Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him," Achebe wrote in his essay "The Truth of Fiction."

Okigbo, Christopher (1930-1967), Nigerian poet, who within his short lifetime established himself as a central figure in the development of modern poetry in Africa and as one of the most important African poets to write in English. The two collections of verse that appeared during Okigbo’s lifetime established him as an innovative and controversial poet, although his poetry also appeared in the important West African cultural magazines Black Orpheus and Transition. The two collections—Heavensgate (1962) and Limits (1964)—reveal a personal, introspective poetry informed by a familiarity with Western myths and filled with rich, startling images.

Soyinka, Wole (1934- ), Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and lecturer, whose writings draw on African tradition and mythology while employing Western literary forms. In 1986 Soyinka became the first African writer and the first black writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature. He established the 1960 Masks drama troupe (later the Orisun Theatre) and produced his own plays and those of other African playwrights. Soyinka often wrote about the need for individual freedom. His plays include A Dance of the Forests (1960), written to celebrate Nigeria’s independence in 1960; Kongi’s Harvest (1965), a political satire; Death and the King’s Horseman (1975); A Play of Giants (1984); and From Zia, with Love (1992). His other writings include the novels The Interpreters (1965), about a group of young Nigerian intellectuals, and Season of Anomy (1973); the poetry collections Idanre (1967) and Mandela’s Earth (1988); the critical work Myth, Literature, and the African World (1976); the autobiographical books Ake: The Years of Childhood (1981) and Isara (1989); and the essay collection The Credo of Being and Nothingness (1991).

Tutuola, Amos (1920-1997), Nigerian novelist and short-story writer, whose first published novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), received international recognition and led to the subsequent surge of interest in African literature in English. Tutuola's books, written in an idiosyncratic English, engage readers vividly in the myth and legend of the Yoruba, an African people inhabiting southwest Nigeria. Imaginative journeys involving encounters with the supernatural—ghosts, demons, and magic—serve as means to spiritual growth and the acquisition of wisdom. Tutuola's ability to recreate in written form the Yoruba oral tradition and to rework and modernize the folklore to his own ends has made his work unique. His other works include My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle (1954), The Brave African Huntress (1958), Feather Woman of the Jungle (1962), Ajaiyi and His Inherited Poverty (1967), The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town (1981), The Wild Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts (1982), Pauper, Brawler and Slanderer (1987), and The Village Witch Doctor (1990).

Okri, Ben (1959- ), Nigerian novelist, poet, and short-story writer, who achieved international recognition with his third novel, The Famished Road (1991), which won Britain's top literary award, the Booker Prize. Okri had been writing for several years and had published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980). During his three years at Essex, he published a second novel, The Landscapes Within (1982). Between 1984 and 1985, Okri worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service, as a radio broadcaster on the “Network Africa” program. He was poetry editor of West Africa magazine from 1980 to 1987. Critical interest in Okri's writing was first generated by his short story collection Incidents at the Shrine (1987), which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa. Another collection of short stories, Stars of the New Curfew (1988), in which, Okri seeks to present a resolution between African mysticism and Western modernism. The Famished Road is a tale of an African “spirit-child.” Okri's works also include a volume of incantatory poems, An African Elegy (1992) as well as a sequel to The Famished Road, Songs of Enchantment (1993). In 1995 he published Astonishing the Gods, a quest-fable about suffering, power, and fame inspired by the works of Swiss writer Hermann Hesse and Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

Emecheta, Buchi (1944- ), Nigerian writer, whose works explore the joys and sorrows of African women as they struggle with patriarchal dominance, neocolonialism, economic exploitation, and racism. Emecheta's first novels, In the Ditch (1972) and Second Class Citizen (1974), drew upon her experiences as a member of London's working class. These works were followed by three novels set in the region of Nigeria where Emecheta was born: The Bride Price (1976), the manuscript of which once had been burned by her husband; The Slave Girl (1977); and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). All three are significant critiques of gender relations in African societies. The Joys of Motherhood has been considered Emecheta's best novel. It follows the life of a woman consumed by the societal demands of motherhood. The novel Destination Biafra (1982) is Emecheta's response to the civil conflict in the late 1960s that threatened to divide Nigeria. Her book Double Yoke (1983) deals with the sexual harassment of female students by male professors and with the struggles of educated African women. In The Rape of Shavi (1983), Emecheta explores the theme of the European exploitation of Africa in the setting of a fictional African country called Shavi. The novels Gwendolen (1989) and Kehinde (1994) are set in London. In Gwendolen Emecheta writes about a Jamaican family in a style reminiscent of the work of American author Alice Walker. In Kehinde, the protagonist, with the support of her women friends, leaves a polygamous marriage to create her own life. Emecheta also wrote an autobiography, Head Above Water (1986); the children's stories Titch the Cat (1979) and Nowhere to Play (1980); literature for young adults, including The Moonlight Bride (1980), The Wrestling Match (1980), Naira Power (1982), and A Kind of Marriage (1986); radio and television plays; and several works of criticism.

Ekwensi, Cyprian (1921- ), Nigerian novelist, short-story writer, and children’s author, who has portrayed the moral and material problems besetting rural West Africans as they migrate to the city. A prolific and popular writer, he owes his immense success to his ability to write realistically about current issues affecting ordinary people. His first published success came with the novella When Love Whispers (1948). People of the City (1954), a collection of short stories tied together almost as a novel, chronicles the frantic pace of life in modern Lagos, Nigeria’s former capital. His most successful novel, Jagua Nana (1961),tells the story of a vibrant middle-aged prostitute who moves between the corrupt, pleasure-seeking life of the city and the pastoral life of her rural origins. Ekwensi continued his career as a writer, reflecting on the war and its aftermath in the novels Survive the Peace (1976) and Divided We Stand (1980). In 1986 he published a sequel to Jagua Nana called Jagua Nana’s Daughter. His children’s books include The Passport of Mallam Ilia (1960), The Drummer Boy (1960), and Juju Rock (1966).

Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1938- ), Kenyan novelist and playwright, many of whose works concern issues of Kenyan independence. Born James Thiong'o Ngugi in Kamiriithu, he changed his name in the late 1960s. Ngugi's first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), was published while he was at school in England. Having returned to Kenya after finishing his studies, Ngugi's second novel The River Between (1965), had as its background the Mau Mau rebellion (1952-1956), in which a group of the Kikuyu people began a campaign of violence against the British, who controlled Kenya at the time. This subject re-emerged in A Grain of Wheat (1967), a novel in which Mau Mau bloodshed is set against celebrations of Kenyan independence. The impact of Ngugi's next novel, Petals of Blood (1977), a story discussing the poor quality of life in East Africa, particularly for Kenya's lower classes, even after independence from the United Kingdom in 1963, led to his detention in 1978 under Kenya's Public Security Act. He recounted his prison experience in Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary (1981). The play Ngaahika Ndeenda (1977; I Will Marry When I Want, 1982) held that those who had fought the hardest for independence had gained the least, a theme Ngugi returned to in the novel Matigari (1989). Ngugi's works of criticism include Moving the Centre (1993).

Gordimer, Nadine (1923- ), South African novelist and short-story writer, known for her realistic character dialogue and passionate writing. She won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991. Fueled by feelings of frustration with the social and political predicament of a racially divided South Africa, Gordimer's writing reflects her anger at racism and political censorship. Her first story was published when she was 15 years old. Her first major collection of stories, The Soft Voice of the Serpent (1952), was followed by Six Feet of the Country (1956), Friday's Footprint (1960), and Not for Publication (1965). These books present incidents of everyday life in South Africa, often from the point of view of a white middle-class character. They examine the tensions between white and non-white people forced to live under apartheid, the system of rigid racial segregation formerly in effect in South Africa. Gordimer's novels A World of Strangers (1958), Occasion for Loving (1963), and The Late Bourgeois World (1966) also address these themes. In her books, Gordimer sympathetically presents the position of nonwhites while conveying the conflicting feelings of liberal whites who live under a system they believe to be wrong. Her novel The Conservationist (1974), about a white man's exploitation of his black employees for personal gain, was a joint winner in 1974 of the Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious literary award. Burger's Daughter (1979) explores a white woman's divided feelings about apartheid when her father is imprisoned for opposing the system. July's People (1981) looks into the future, depicting a white family trying to escape from a civil war by depending upon their black servants. In My Son's Story (1990), a young black man tries to understand the conflicts of the private and public life of his father. None to Accompany Me (1994), set in postapartheid South Africa, concerns a woman who seeks self-understanding through her devotion to political causes. Writing and Being (1995) is a collection of essays.

Paton, Alan Stewart (1903-1988), South African writer and social reformer, whose works condemned apartheid, the policy of racial separation practiced in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s.Paton received great critical and popular acclaim for his first novel, Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), which is distinguished by its compassionate treatment of those caught up in the racial conflicts of South Africa. The work was made into an opera with music by German American composer Kurt Weill and was adapted for several motion pictures. Paton’s second novel, Too Late the Phalarope (1953); his short story collection, Tales from a Troubled Land (1961); and his later novel, Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful (1982), also deal with racial tensions in South African society. In 1955 he published The Land and People of South Africa, a nonfiction work, and in 1968 The Long View, which deals with apartheid.

Coetzee, J(ohn) M(ichael) (1940- ), South African writer and scholar, who is best known for his novels Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) and The Life and Times of Michael K (1983), which won the Booker Prize, Britain's highest literary award. Coetzee's novels often use allegory to question the apartheid regime that governed South Africa until 1990, or racial conflict of any kind, and to explore the resulting effects on individuals and society. Coetzee won a second Booker Prize in 1999 for Disgrace, a novel about life in post-apartheid South Africa. he completed work on two novellas he had already begun, which were published in one volume as Dusklands in 1974. Both novellas, The Vietnam Project and The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee, deal with the dilemmas faced by individuals who are in conflict with society. Dusklands was followed by In the Heart of the Country (1977; published the same year in the United States as From the Heart of the Country, which is structured as the diary of a woman declining into insanity. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), the story of a government magistrate's personal evolution into questioning the government for which he works, won South Africa's highest literary honor, the Central News Agency (CNA) Literary Award, in 1980, as did The Life and Times of Michael K (1983), the story of man's physical and psychological journey through a country at war. Coetzee's other works include Foe (1986), Age of Iron (1990), and The Master of Saint Petersburg (1994), as well as a number of books of essays, among them Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews (1994). Coetzee has also translated the works of other authors into Dutch, German, French, and Afrikaans.

La Guma, Alex (1925-1985), South African writer, who used his writing to give a voice to the black South Africans oppressed under apartheid, the official policy of racial segregation followed in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. La Guma's work helped provide an artistic vision of cultural change that accompanied the efforts of the more celebrated antiapartheid political figures of South Africa, such as Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko. La Guma is best known, however, for his novels, especially A Walk in the Night (1962), a short novel that traces the movement of the protagonist, Michael Adonis, toward criminality as he copes with poverty, police harassment, and racism in the workplace. La Guma's novel And a Threefold Cord (1964), set in Cape Town during an unrelenting rainstorm, focuses on poor black families who live under bleak economic conditions. The novel The Stone Country (1967) depicts life in a South African prison, the brutality of which serves as a metaphor for the experience of black South Africans living under apartheid. La Guma's other works include the edited volume Apartheid: A Collection of Writings on South African Racism by South Africans (1971), the autobiographical novel In the Fog of the Seasons' End (1972), the travel book A Soviet Journey (1978), and the novel Time of the Butcherbird (1979).

Mphahlele, Es’kia (1919- ), South African writer, best known for his autobiography Down Second Avenue (1959), which portrays his early life as a black South African. The characters in Mphahlele's fictional works are drawn with vivid realism and are portrayed not as victims but as survivors who overcome the harshness of their lives. Mphahlele's first book, Man Must Live (1947), is a collection of short stories about black life in South Africa. Down Second Avenue, his second and perhaps most famous work, achieved great critical and popular success and is considered a classic of South African literature. The Wanderers (1971) is an autobiographical novel dealing with themes of exile. His novel Chirundu (1979) focuses on the conflicts felt by a fictional African politician. Afrika My Music (1984) is another autobiographical work, describing Mphahlele's exile and return to South Africa. His novel Father Come Home (1984) is concerned with the suffering caused by the Natives Land Act of 1913, which restricted blacks from residing in certain areas in South Africa. Mphahlele's other books include the critical works The African Image (1962) and Voices in the Whirlwind, and Other Essays (1972). A collection of his letters, Bury Me at the Marketplace, was published in 1984.

Schreiner, Olive (1855-1920), South African novelist and political activist most famous for her book The Story of an African Farm (1883). Schreiner was a pioneer in her treatment of women in her fiction and made many perceptive observations on the political future of South Africa, particularly the situation of blacks under apartheid. Born Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner in Wittebergen, South Africa (then Cape Colony), she had no formal education but was taught at home by her mother. She began writing two of her novels while supporting herself as a governess from 1874 to 1881, after which she went to England, hoping to study. The Story of an African Farm was published under the pseudonym Ralph Iron while Schreiner was in England. The story of a young girl growing up on a farm in the grasslands of southern Africa, trying to attain her independence in the face of a rigid, repressive society, the book met with immediate success. In England Schreiner came to be accepted by literary and political circles and became a supporter of women's rights. She was a friend of Cecil Rhodes, a British statesman and major proponent for British rule in southern Africa, but parted company with him for political reasons. Schreiner caused controversy in relation to Rhodes's activities with her book Trooper Halkett of Mashonaland (1897), which criticized the way Rhodesia (which became Zimbabwe in 1980) was colonized. She returned to South Africa in 1899 and worked on behalf of the Boers, a local, white Afrikaner group that refused to live under British rule, during the Boer War (1899-1902). Schreiner also met and married a politician, Samuel Cronwright—he changed his name to Cronwright-Schreiner—and they both worked for a variety of political causes. In 1911 she wrote Women and Labour, a feminist novel criticizing the relations between men and women. Schreiner spent her last years in England, separated from her husband, but returned to South Africa in 1920 shortly before she died. Her other novels, both with feminist themes, are From Man to Man (1927) and Undine (1929). They were published posthumously.

Van der Post, Sir Laurens (1906-1996), South African writer, best known for his books of personal reflection on travel and anthropology, and whose prose is noted for its striking imagery and minute observation. Born in Philippolis, Van der Post was raised on a working ranch and educated at Grey College in Bloemfontein, South Africa. In 1925, with two other South African writers, Roy Campbell and William Plomer, he helped start the magazine Voorslag, which was strongly opposed to the South African apartheid government. Due to his involvement with the periodical, Van der Post was forced to leave South Africa and so traveled to Japan, where he wrote his first novel, In a Province (1934), an early indictment of South African racism. From 1939 to 1946 Van der Post served with the British army during World War II (1939-1945); he spent three years (1943-1946) in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, an experience on which he based his books The Seed and the Sower (1963; filmed as Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence in 1983), The Night of the New Moon (1970), and Portrait of Japan (1968).      Van der Post's early exposure to San myths led to a lifelong fascination with this ethnic group of the Kalahari Desert of northern South Africa, whose traditional way of life Van der Post has idealized in his writings as an intuitively spiritual state of perfect harmony with the natural environment. His works on San culture, The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958), The Heart of the Hunter (1961), A Mantis Carol (1975), and Testament to the Bushman (with Jane Taylor, 1984), are probably his best known books.   Other books by Van der Post include Venture to the Interior (1952), Flamingo Feather (1955), Jung and the Story of Our Time (1976), Yet Being Someone Other (1982), A Walk with a White Bushman (with Jean-Marc Pottiez, 1986), About Blady (1991), and Feather Fall: An Anthology (edited by Jean-Marc Pottiez, 1994). Van der Post was knighted by the British government in 1981.

Fugard, Athol (1932- ), South African playwright, director, and actor, whose works often focus on South African politics. By portraying the conflict between characters from different backgrounds, Fugard's plays explore racism and repression—of apartheid (a system of racial segregation formerly adhered to in South Africa) in particular and of civilization in general—and celebrate the strength of the human spirit.

     Born Harold Athol Lannigan Fugard in Middleburg, Fugard was educated at the University of Cape Town and began working in theater in the late 1950s. In 1959 his experimental theater group in Port Elizabeth produced his first play No Good Friday. International recognition came with the production of The Blood Knot (1961), which with Hello and Goodbye (1965) and Boesman and Lena (1969) formed a trilogy of plays focusing on family relationships in Port Elizabeth. Fugard cowrote Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972) and The Island (1973) with actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona. His other plays include A Lesson from Aloes (1978), Master Harold ... and the Boys (1982), The Road to Mecca (1984), My Children, My Africa! (1988), Playland (1992), and Valley Song (1995).

     With the ending of apartheid in the early 1990s, Fugard’s writing became less specifically political. The Captain’s Tiger (1999) is based on Fugard’s experience serving as a steamer ship captain’s assistant in the mid-1950s. Many of Fugard’s works have been produced in theaters worldwide and have received critical acclaim. Fugard wrote about his work in the theater in Notebooks 1960-1977 (1984); he wrote about his personal life in Cousins: A Memoir (1997).

Head, Bessie (1937-1986), South African writer, whose works express the struggles for individual identity within a community and in the face of a variety of difficult social conditions. Head is best known for her novel A Question of Power (1973), the first part of which is autobiographical. The novel describes the experiences of its protagonist, Elizabeth, a native of South Africa who lives alone in Botswana. The book follows Elizabeth's attempts to make sense of the world around her, a world that poses itself as rational, despite apartheid and masculine dominance. The book's themes include madness, exile, sexuality, and the nature of good and evil, all of which are treated within a metaphysical world influenced by Head's blend of Hindu philosophy and Christianity. The novel is rich in symbolism and can be read with psychoanalytic theories in mind. Head's other works include When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971), The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales (1977), Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind (1981), and A Bewitched Crossroad: An African Saga (1984).  

Armah, Ayi Kwei (1939- ), Ghanaian novelist, short-story writer, and essayist, considered one of Africa’s most important writers. Armah also is one of the sharpest interpreters of the condition of African nations—past, present, and future. Armah’s first novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), delivers a strong critique of corruption in newly independent African states and remains highly controversial. In the novel, he uses images of filth, slime, excrement, and rot to convey the greed, bribery, and fraud that threaten to strangle the best qualities of a new African nation. Armah’s second novel, Fragments (1970), is considered partly autobiographical. It deals with a young African man, Baako, who returns home after study in the United States to find his family caught up in material acquisition. The novel’s symbolism is embedded in the story of a traditional “outdooring”ceremony for a newborn. The family speeds up the ceremony to reap the gifts that accompany it, resulting in the child’s death. Why Are We So Blest? (1972) is a portrait of three would-be revolutionaries in a fictional north African country, each struggling with the loss of their idealism.Perhaps Armah’s most stunning achievement is Two Thousand Seasons (1973), a historical novel set in precolonial Africa. It deals with migrations of peoples, enslavement of Africans by both Arabs and Europeans, and the possibility of resistance to colonialism. Armah creates a griot (a traditional storyteller-historian) from an ancient African community to tell the history of the struggle of Africans. The Healers (1978) continues this theme, returning to Africa’s precolonial past and the dissolution of the Ashanti Kingdom in the 1800s to examine causes of contemporary political ruin. The later novel Osiris Rising: A Novel of Africa Past, Present and Future (1995) adds another volume to Armah’s commentary on African history.

Awoonor, Kofi Nyidevu (1935- ), Ghanaian poet and novelist. His works in English focus on life in Ghana following independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, but they also draw heavily from the traditional literature of the Ewe culture in which he grew up. His first novel, This Earth, My Brother...: An Allegorical Tale of Africa (1971), remains his most widely read work. In it he writes of a young lawyer’s coming to terms with post-colonial West African society. As in his early poetry, Awoonor employs rhythms and motifs from traditional Ewe dirges to express the alienation and anguish that demand a restructuring, refocusing, and revitalizing of individual and communal order in contemporary Africa. In his second novel, Comes the Voyager at Last (1991), Awoonor examines the process of an African American coming to Africa and finding his roots.