KOFI AWOONOR

The Ghanaian writer, Kofi Awoonor, established himself as one of the early eminent writers in Africa in the post-colonial era. He was a man who belonged to two worlds, at home among his Ewe roots, and a skilled man of letters in the western world.    

 Most of his readers would probably consider him to have been a major poet, primarily. Awoonor published many books of poems and poetry and was anthologized in many publications around the world.        

 Kofi Awoonor - originally published as George Awoonor Williams - was also an academic who taught in Universities around the world, and published superb historical essays and criticism. His early major work of essays, The breast of the earth, was for many years a reference point for many researchers and scholars.     

If there was any doubt that Awoonor was a versatile writer, the publication of novels he wrote - like This earth my brother, and (later) Comes the Voyager at last, only further served to confirm this.

During his lifetime, Awoonor commanded respect and reverence wherever African

literature and poetry were concerned. One of his most striking, lengthy interviews appeared in Talking with African Writers, an impressive book of interviews edited by Jane Wilkinson  

George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams was born in Wheta, in the Volta region of what was then the Gold Coast, present-day Ghana. He was the eldest of 10 children in the family. He was educated at Achimota School and then proceeded to the University of Ghana, graduating in 1960. While at university he wrote his first poetry book, Rediscovery, published in 1964. Like the rest of his work, Rediscovery is rooted in African oral poetry.

 His early works were inspired by the singing and verse of his native Ewe people, and he later published translations of the work of three Ewe dirge singers (Guardians of the Sacred Word: Ewe Poetry, 1973). Awoonor managed the Ghana Film Corporation and helped to found the Ghana Playhouse, going on to have a significant role in developing theatre and drama in the country. He was also an editor of the literary journal Okyeame and an associate editor of Transition Magazine.

He studied literature at University College London (M.A., 1970), and while in England wrote several radio plays for the BBC. He spent the early 1970s in the United States, studying and teaching at Stony Brook University (then called SUNY at Stony Brook). While in the USA he wrote This Earth, My Brother and Night of My Blood, both books published in 1971.

Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 as head of the English department at the University of Cape Coast. Within months he was arrested for helping a soldier accused of trying to overthrow the military government and was imprisoned without trial; Awoonor was later released when his sentence was remitted in October 1976. The House by the Sea is about his time in jail. After imprisonment he became politically active. He continued to write mostly non-fiction.

Awoonor was Ghana's ambassador to Brazil from 1984 to 1988, before serving as his country's ambassador to Cuba. From 1990 to 1994 Awoonor was Ghana's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where he headed the committee against apartheid. He was also a former Chairman of the Council of State, the main advisory body to the president of Ghana, serving in that position from 2009 to January 2013.

Tragically, on 21 September 2013, Awoonor was among those killed in an attack at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. He was in Kenya as a participant in the Storymoja Hay Festival, a four-day celebration of writing, thinking and storytelling, at which he was due to perform on the evening of his death.

Works

Poetry

    Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964)

    Night of My Blood (1971) – poems that explore Awoonor's roots, and the impact of foreign rule in Africa

    The House By the Sea (1978)

    The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems (University of Nebraska Press, 2014)

Novels

    This Earth, My Brother (1971) 

   Comes the Voyager at Last (1992)

Non-fiction

    The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara (1975), Anchor Press, ISBN 0-385-07053-5

    Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times (1990)

    The African Predicament: Collected Essays (2006), Sub-Saharan Publishers, ISBN 9789988550820