Browsing by Author "Mensah, A.N."
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Item The Highlife and the Ghanaian Novel(2013-12-09) Mensah, A.N.This paper examines the different ways in which three Ghanaian novelists adopt the lyrics of the highlife, the popular West African musical form, into their novels. Ama Ata Aidoo in Changes makes a fleeting allusion to the words of a highlife song, but provides in that brief moment an ironic comment on the irrepressible optimism that is so prevalent among Ghanaians. Cameron Duodu in The Gab Boys shows a more sustained adoption of the highlife in which he not only expresses his own love of the music, but more significantly uses it as a prop for his realism, for his vivid depiction of time and place. Finally, AyiKweiArmah’s first twonovels employ the lyrics of the highlife and a focus on its rhythm as a device for thematicreinforcement and as a means of probing the Ghanaian character.Item The Place We Call Home and Other Poems: A Review Article(Legon Journal of the Humanities, University of Ghana, 2011) Mensah, A.N.The question which inevitably arises whenever a prolific poet like Kofi Anyidoho publishes a new collection is: “So what is new here?” But perhaps before we confront that issue, it is useful to step back for a moment, rather like the Husago dancer that the poet is always invoking, to consider why the writing, the reading and, for us in the academic community, the study of poetry is a worthwhile activity. Poetry offers images which define emotively and felicitously our condition as human beings in a family, a nation and the world. A sociologist can write a paper supported with statistics on the “problem” of street children in urban Ghana. In comparison, a poet will offer an image of the anguish etched on the face of one imagined street child, and the emotional power of the poet’s picture may well be more instrumental than the sociological essay in a national campaign against the proliferation of street children. However, let us not get simple-minded. We are not saying we should throw out sociology in favour of poetry. What we are suggesting is that poetry should be an essential part of the way we look at and understand ourselves as human beings – bearing in mind that not all poetry is good. Anyidoho’s poetry has been most valuable in helping us see ourselves in powerful and quite unforgettable ways. Consider the picture of the rich relatives of the poor man in “The Dance of the Hunchback” who will not spend a penny to assist him, but on his death are quite ready to honour him with a lavish funeral. The fact that the people of this country will often waste on funerals money they will not spend to assist the needy living is well-known, but the poet speaks of it in language that imprints powerfully on our minds the folly of our ways. We feel the pathos of the hunchback’s dirge for his brother and sympathize with the sad-funny image of him as he tries to perform his ungainly dance for the departed.Item Representing Islam In Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah Is Not Obliged And Mohammed Naseehu Ali’s The Prophet Of Zongo Street(University of Ghana, 2013-07) Darkoh-Ankrah, K.; Mensah, A.N.; Korang, K.L.; University of Ghana, College of Humanities, School of Languages, Department of EnglishIslam is one of the major religions of Africa. Islamic issues in society are prominent in some contemporary African fiction, and often these issues are in conflict with social, economic and political forces. This thesis studies the conflict between Islam and the socio-economic and political forces in Ahmadou Kourouma (2000) and Mohammed Naseehu Ali (2005). One observation coming from the study is that Islam succumbs to material realities. Muslim characters often adulterate or renege on their faith in ways that contradict the dictates of the religion. The next observation is that Muslim characters often find no protection in Islam when they are confronted with material realities. How these writers portray Islam as it confronts socio-economic, political, and other religious forces, is what this thesis examines. It makes a comparison between the two works set in different socio-economic and political spaces .Kourouma.s in war-torn Liberia and Sierra Leone on the one hand and Ali.s in the relatively peaceful Ghana on the other.