AYI KWEI ARMAH

Ayi Kwei Armah is one of Africa's most distinguished and venerated writers; a man whose name is often uttered with bated breath and consummate respect by lovers of African writing.    

Armah, from the beginning was destined for literary greatness after publishing his first novel, The beautyful ones are not yet born, almost fifty years ago!  

His debut novel would shock the world with his wholesale denunciation of  corruption in an Africa just apparently freed of the burden of colonialism. Armah's no holds barred descriptions of filth and horrific corruption was contrasted with the nigh-pristine character and integrity of the protagonist of the work, "The man".   

Thereafter Armah continued publishing powerful novels, perhaps culminating in the teeming sociological work, The Healers. By this time he had published five powerful novels; then there was a lull for a long time. Then further massive works would follow even until recently.   

Armah's profound, thought-provoking convincing works have attracted heaps of critical attention from inception. Countless full-length books and essays continue to be published focusing on Armah and his work.    

A rather controversial figure for decades, Armah might not have had the most congenial personal relationships with some of his fellow writers, but he remains one of the veritable icons of African writing - a most talented creative writer and polemicist.

Armah was born to Fante speaking parents, and descending on his father's side from a royal family in the Ga nation, Armah was born in the port city of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana. Having attended Achimota School, he left Ghana in 1959 to attend Groton School in Groton, MA. After graduating he entered Harvard University, receiving a degree in Sociology. Armah then moved to Algeria and worked as a translator for the magazine Revolution Africaine. In 1964, Armah returned to Ghana, where he was a scriptwriter for Ghana Television and later taught English at the Navrongo School.

Between 1967 and 1968, he was editor of Jeune Afrique magazine in Paris. From 1968-1970, Armah studied at Columbia University, obtaining his MFA in Creative Writing. In the 1970s, he worked as a teacher in East Africa, at the College of National Education, Chang'ombe, Tanzania, and at the National University of Lesotho. He lived in Senegal, in the 1980s and taught at Amherst and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In Fragments - Armah's second novel -  the protagonist, Baako, is a "been-to" - a man who has been to the United States and received his education there. Back in Ghana he is regarded with superstitious awe as a link to the Western life style. Baako's grandmother Naana, a blind-seer, stands in living contact with the ancestors. Under the strain of the unfulfilled expectations Baako finally breaks. As in his first novel, Armah contrasts the two worlds of materialism and moral values, corruption and dreams, two worlds of integrity and social pressure.

Why Are We So Blest? (1972) was set largely in an American University, and focused on a student, Modin Dofu, who has dropped out of Harvard. Disillusioned Modin is torn between independence and Western values. He meets a Portuguese black African named Solo, who has already suffered a mental breakdown, and a white American girl, Aimée Reitsch. Solo, the rejected writer, keeps a diary, which is the substance of the novel. Aimée's frigidity and devotion to the revolution leads finally to destruction, when Modin is killed in the desert by O.A.S. revolutionaries.

Trans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as "predators," "destroyers," and "zombies". The novel is written in allegorical tone, and shifts from autobiographical and realistic details to philosophical pondering, prophesying a new age.

The Healers (1979) mixed fact and fiction about the fall of the Ashante Empire. The healers in question are traditional medicine practitioners who see fragmentation as the lethal disease of Africa.

Armah remained silent as a novelist for a long period until 1995 when he published Osiris Rising, depicting a radical educational reform group which reinstates ancient Egypt at the center of its curriculum.

Especially Armah's later work have evoked strong reaction from many critics. Two Thousand Seasons has been labelled "dull and verbose" by some pundits; although Wole Soyinka considered its vision secular and humane.

As an essayist Armah has dealt with the identity and predicament of Africa. His main concern is for the creation of a pan-African agency that will embrace all the diverse cultures and languages of the continent. Armah has called for the adoption of Kiswahili as the continental language.

Ayi Kwei Armah's Works

The beautyful ones are not yet born

Fragments  

Why are we so blest?

Two thousand Seasons

The Healers

Osiris Rising

KMT: In the house of life

The Eloquence of the Scribes

Hieroglyphics for Babies