Towards reconstructing Africa: Recuperation and responsibility in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Healers

dc.contributor.authorAsaah, A.H.
dc.contributor.authorZou, T.
dc.date.accessioned2024-06-04T11:25:32Z
dc.date.available2024-06-04T11:25:32Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.descriptionResearch Articleen_US
dc.description.abstractA product of Africa’s pre-colonial and colonial history, Ayi Kwei Armah’s fifth novel, The Healers (1978), is steeped in an African communalistic worldview and the functional conception of art. In this article, we examine the multiple dimensions to recuperation within the context of the reconstruction of Africa, the continental search for utopia, and the responsibility that this places on Africans. Using Armah’s communitarian perspectives on health as As a guide, we identify six interlocking subsets of recuperation: healing, re-creation, renascence, repossession, recall, and Sankofa (return). Informed by Molefi Kete Asante’s construct of agency and Armah’s communalistic injunctions to readers, we establish that permeating each of these building blocks is the responsibility of Africans to operationalize the reconstruction of Africa, the leitmotif of the novel. As helpers, visionaries, and custodians of vital traditional knowledge and skills, the healers facilitate the sharing of information on Africa’s past and future against the background of British colonial domination. We also show that Armah deliberately gives the novel this polysemic title to transcend the spatial, cultural, and epistemic limitations imposed on the continent by the colonial order. We conclude that the social orientation and creative configuration of health in the work are consistent with the diverse and intermingling meanings of recuperationen_US
dc.identifier.otherDOI: https://doi.org/10.17159/tl.v59i2.13220
dc.identifier.urihttp://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/42093
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherTydskrif vir Letterkundeen_US
dc.subjectAfrican recuperationen_US
dc.subjectAfrican responsibilityen_US
dc.subjectThe Healersen_US
dc.titleTowards reconstructing Africa: Recuperation and responsibility in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Healersen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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