• Money Galore (African Writers Series, AWS161)

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    This witty, extravagant but seriously intended satire marks the arrival of Ghana’s answer to T.M. Aluko. Abraham Kofi Kafu finds teaching a hard grind and lacking in rewards. He stands for the Liberation Party, the party of businessmen, landlords, smallholders and taxi drivers. As Minister of Internal Welfare, Kafu pursues his political career with a lively devotion to women, drink, gambling and skulduggery of various kinds and an almost total aversion to work unless it is devoted to some personal end. He is supported by a large cast: a crooked  but amiable contractor, Anson Berko; a less amiable and even more crooked contractor, Nee Otu Lartey; the Permanent Secretary, Mr Vuga, an ineffably dreary civil servant who strives to manipulate Kafu as he has manipulated previous Ministers but also turns out to be as crooked and so is subject to blackmail; the slimy Reverend Dan Opia Sese, who takes over as headmaster from Benjy Baisi and seduces Kafu’s maid. But even Kafu cannot get away with it for ever.

  • The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (African Writers Series, AWS43)

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    A railway freight clerk in Ghana attempts to hold out against the pressures that impel him toward corruption in both his family and his country. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is the novel that catapulted Ayi Kwei Armah into the limelight. The novel is generally a satirical attack on the Ghanaian society during Kwame Nkrumah’s regime and the period immediately after independence in the 1960s. It is often claimed to rank with Things Fall Apart as one of the high points of post-colonial African Literature.

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