Ayi Kwei Armah
Author of The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
About the Author
Ayi Kwei Armah was born in Takoradi, Ghana, in 1939. He was educated at the elite Achimota College, near Accra, and received a degree in sociology from Harvard University in 1963. Upon leaving Harvard he become actively involved in the struggle for African liberation of Algeria, which had just show more emerged from its armed struggle for independence from France. In Algeria, Armah worked as a translator for the magazine Revolution Africaine until his health failed toward the end of 1963. After a five-month hospitalization in Boston, Massachusetts, he returned to Ghana in 1964. Armah's first novel, The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), deals with political corruption in a newly independent African nation. The capital of this nation resembles Accra, the capital of his native Ghana. The novel is generally felt to be about the last years of Nkrumah's government. In Fragments (1970), his largely autobiographical second novel, Armah illustrates the difficulties of an intellectual in a culture oriented toward material possessions. His third novel, Why Are We So Blest? (1972), is considered largely an attempt to probe the complex relation of colonizer and colonized-between the European and the African. His most ambitious novel published so far is his fourth, Two Thousand Seasons (1973). Armah has lived and traveled in various parts of Africa, beginning in 1970. He has taught at several universities in Africa and the United States. He currently lives in Dakar, Senegal. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: literariness.org
Works by Ayi Kwei Armah
The Eloquence of the Scribes: A Memoir on the Sources and Resources of African Literature (2009) 13 copies
The Resolutionaries 2 copies
Navrat 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1939-10-28
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Ghana
- Birthplace
- Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana
- Education
- Harvard University
Members
Reviews
Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah
This really picked up a little over halfway through, when the collective of characters became more clearly outlined. A more thorough review can be found here: https://wp.me/p4LPys-nA.
½
This has been on my tbr for a very long time, being cited as a classic of post-colonial African literature. It is a strangely beautiful book, despite the ugliness of its story.
The narrative follows an unnamed man as he refuses to accept a bribe at work. The reader is given the impression that bribery is a way of life, and the man is laughed at and berated by his friends and family for dooming himself to poverty because of his 'perverse' morality. The man has two principle friends: Koomson, a schoolfriend turned corrupt politician, and The Teacher, a previous source of spiritual guidance who has grown tired of his own disappointment. These two provide the foils for the man as he wrestles with his own decisions in life and his hopes for the future of Ghana. The book finishes with the country in the midst of a military coup, which threatens to turn the old moralities on their heads.
Although the book is only short, there is a slow wistfulness about it, with short bursts of narrative interspersed with long, thoughtful chapters examining the man's thoughts and their place in contemporary (1960s) Ghanaian society. The simple act of being offered a bribe is enough plot to drive the book for almost its entire length, until the build up to the coup. It is a very thoughtful meditation on the foundations of Ayi Kwei Armah's home country, and rightly deserves it reputation as a classic of African literature.… (more)
The narrative follows an unnamed man as he refuses to accept a bribe at work. The reader is given the impression that bribery is a way of life, and the man is laughed at and berated by his friends and family for dooming himself to poverty because of his 'perverse' morality. The man has two principle friends: Koomson, a schoolfriend turned corrupt politician, and The Teacher, a previous source of spiritual guidance who has grown tired of his own disappointment. These two provide the foils for the man as he wrestles with his own decisions in life and his hopes for the future of Ghana. The book finishes with the country in the midst of a military coup, which threatens to turn the old moralities on their heads.
Although the book is only short, there is a slow wistfulness about it, with short bursts of narrative interspersed with long, thoughtful chapters examining the man's thoughts and their place in contemporary (1960s) Ghanaian society. The simple act of being offered a bribe is enough plot to drive the book for almost its entire length, until the build up to the coup. It is a very thoughtful meditation on the foundations of Ayi Kwei Armah's home country, and rightly deserves it reputation as a classic of African literature.… (more)
The most memorable read from the African section of New Literatures in English at Hull in 1994, if only because it took such effort to read and eventually enjoy.
1 
selwyncousland | 1 other review | Mar 22, 2007 |
selwyncousland | 1 other review | Mar 22, 2007 | Lists
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Statistics
- Works
- 15
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 857
- Popularity
- #29,859
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 34
- Languages
- 7
- Favorited
- 1