“Ayi Kwei Armah as a Chronicler of his People”
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Date
1997-07-13
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Abstract
Ayi Kwei Armah has been acclaimed as one of the most authentic voices of African Literature and no discussion of African Literature would be complete without the inclusion of the works of Ayi Kwei Armah. Since the publication of his first novel The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born in the late 1960s, Armah’s novels have consistently dealt with the problems of the destruction of the African peoples and African continent.
A thorough reading of all his novels to date will also reveal that there is a conscious effort to give an account of the various epochs in the lives of the African peoples from Origin to the present. And Armah himself has stated in a recent interview to the West African Magazine that,
“My agenda as a writer is built around
retrieval of lost knowledge. Lost knowledge
about our culture as Africans. That’s what
interests me and I am picking information
from our entire history and trying to use
it to present Works of Literature which
I hope will have some value for students
for the years to come”(No.4l28 15-19
Dec 1996, P.1923).
Thus through his novels, the history of the African peoples can be read.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine how far Armah is able is fulfill this agenda. The thesis aims at showing how Armah chronicles the different epochs of the African peoples.
It must however be noted that Armah does not present his chronicle in a chronological manner. That is in the manner of writing and publication Armah does not follow, the real time of the events described. However, what will be done in the thesis is to rearrange Armah’s novels in order of chronology of events. Therefore, Two Thousand Seasons will assume the first position followed by The Healers, The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Why Are We So Blest? Fragments and finally Osiris Rising
It is my belief that at the end of the thesis, I will be able to justify my rearrangement of novels of Armah in this manner. It is also hoped that at the end of the thesis, the history of the African people will be recognised in these unique works of literature of Ayi Kwei Armah.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Board of Postgraduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the Degree of Master of Arts in Comparative Literature, 1997