Ayi Kwei Armah, Radical Iconoclast

Ghanaian novelist, essayist, and short-story writer Ayi Kwei Armah has won international recognition as one of Africas most articulate writers. In this book, Ode Ogede argues that previous critics have misinterpreted the aesthetic and literary influences that have shaped Armahs artistic vision and overlooked his most significant and valuable contribution to the problems of writing outside the prison-house of conventional English. Professor Ogede situates Armahs writing within its cultural, historical, and political contexts and examines Armahs ability to create new literary forms based on his masterful manipulation of African oral traditions. Armah is presented here as a writer who looks beyond the corruption that would seem to have engulfed Africa and who successfully bridges the concerns of first- and second-generation postcolonial African writers.