Ghanaian Literatures

Ghananian Literature is a scholarly and very valuable collection surveying the Ghanian literatures and their critical reception until the present decade. World Literature Today Ghana, one of the smaller countries in Africa, is a linguistically and culturally pluralistic society that has had a disproportionately large impact on the rest of Africa.

Although English is the official language, works are also published in vernacular languages. This comprehensive introduction to the literature of Ghana is organized by type of literature--oral art, popular literature, and elite, primarily English-language literature. Some essays appear for the first time; all reflect the wide range of Ghana's creative writing.

Review: ?Ghanaian literatures are well served in this volume, which is not a history but a selection of 18 articles, 17 of which have been previously published. There are three essays on oral art; two on popular literature (comic opera and popular fiction): five on poetry--two devoted to the poetry of Kofi Awooner, one on Kwesi Brew, one on Atukwei Okai and the last on three young Ghanaian poets: Odamtten, Anyidoho and Agyemang; two on drama--a survey article and the second on Ama Ata Aidoo's plays; six on fiction--with three devoted to Kwei Armah's novels, the fourth on Kofi Awooner, the fifth on Ama Ata Aidoo and the sixth a survey article on three well-known titles--The Catechist, The Narrow Path and A Woman in Her Prime.

The editor's Introduction is especially impressive and valuable: he surveys the whole field of Ghanaian literature, briefly but pointedly, and provides a wide context for the specific topics covered in the articles. Priebe has also compiled an 11 page Bibliography of Critical Studies of Ghanaian Literature, with sections devoted to the five parts of the body of the book and additional sections on Background and General Literature, Bibliography, Interviews and Biographical Statements and Early Writers (Pre-1920).

There is a reliable index and notes on contributors. The articles which form the main body of the text are readily available to workers in the field. But in bringing them together in the present form the editor not only makes them more accessible but reveals the impressive achievement of Ghanaian literatures, a fact often lost sight of in surveys of West African writing where Nigeria prevails.?-African Studies Review