Two Thousand Seasons

Last updated
Two thousand reasons
Two Thousand Seasons.jpg
Cover of paperback edition published by Third World Press
AuthorAyi Kwei Armah
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
PublisherHeinemann Educational Books; First Edition
Publication date
January 1, 1979
Publication placeGhana
Pages206
ISBN 978-0435902186

Two Thousand Seasons is a novel by Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah. The novel was first published in 1973 and subsequently published a number of times, including in the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. It is an epic historical novel, attempting to depict the last "two thousand seasons" of African history in one narrative arc following a Pan-African approach. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Themes

The novel focuses on the complicity of African people in the enslavement of their people to intruders, first represented as Arabs then later as European whites. [1] In doing so, the novel emphasizes the continued complicitness of African leaders in furthering the oppression of other African peoples. [1] For Armah, the intervention of outside cultures violates a past "African ideal [...] egalitarian philosophy" which can help guide the recovery of, what critic Chinyere Nwahunanya calls a "lost African Eden". [4]

Reception

Criticism of the novel is mixed. Chinua Achebe, in a 1987 interview, described Two Thousand Seasons as "unacceptable on the basis of fact, and on the basis of art. The work is ponderous and heavy and wooden, almost embarrassing in its heaviness." [1]

The reviewing site Complete Review gave the novel a B+ rating, noting that it is an "often strong but ultimately too simplistic picture of Africa -- past and future". [1] The review focuses on Armah's oversimplification of the African continent's "actual sad history". [1]

Gloria Steinem in a 2016 article for T: The New York Times Style Magazine chose Two Thousand Seasons as one of her 10 favourite books and said of Ayi Kwei Armah: "He not only redefines history, but how history is told." [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gloria Steinem</span> American activist and journalist (born 1934)

Gloria Marie Steinem is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kwame Kwei-Armah</span> Actor, playwright, singer, and broadcaster (born 1967)

Kwame Kwei-Armah is a British actor, playwright, director and broadcaster. In 2005, Kwei-Armah became the second black Briton to have a play staged in the West End of London when his award-winning piece Elmina's Kitchen transferred to the Garrick Theatre. He was the first black Briton to head a major British national theater, when he took the directorship of the Young Vic in 2018. Kwei-Armah was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center Stage (theater)</span> Non-profit organization in Baltimore, Maryland, US

Center Stage is the state theater of Maryland, and Baltimore's largest professional producing theater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayi Kwei Armah</span> Ghanaian writer (born 1939)

Ayi Kwei Armah is a Ghanaian writer best known for his novels including The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Two Thousand Seasons (1973) and The Healers (1978). He is also an essayist, as well as having written poetry, short stories, and books for children.

<i>The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born</i> 1968 novel by Ayi Kwei Armah

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is the debut novel by Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah. It was published in 1968 by Houghton Mifflin, and then republished in the influential Heinemann African Writers Series in 1969. The novel tells the story of an unnamed man who struggles to reconcile himself with the reality of post-independence Ghana.

<i>Okyeame</i>

Okyeame was a literary magazine founded by the Ghana Society of Writers in the post-Independence era, which saw the rapid rise of a new generation of thinkers, writers and poets in the country. The first issue of Okyeame appeared in 1960, and issues were published, at irregular intervals, up until 1972. Inspired by Kwame Nkrumah, the first Prime Minister of Ghana, the publication sought to explore the experiences of Africa from a new intellectual framework. Writers published in the magazine include its first editor Kofi Awoonor, Efua Sutherland, Ayi Kwei Armah and Ama Ata Aidoo.

<i>Osiris Rising</i> Book by Ayi Kwei Armah

Osiris Rising: A Novel of Africa Past, Present and Future is a novel written by Ayi Kwei Armah and published in 1995. The story revolves around an African-American woman, Ast, who goes to Africa looking for heritage after she gets her PhD. The text addresses a number of contemporary African issues, including the residual colonial institutions that limit African culture, the hypocritical nature of African Americans and expatriates who try to help Africa and the contemplation of "What is African history and culture?" The book is published by Per Ankh, a Senegalese publishing company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Fraser (writer)</span> British author and biographer

Robert Fraser FRSL is a British author and biographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Lipenga</span>

Ken Diston Lipenga is a Malawian politician, journalist, and writer. He was the Member of Parliament for Phalombe East from 1997 to 2014. He has served in various ministerial positions.

Benjamin Kwakye is a Ghanaian novelist and lawyer. His first novel, The Clothes of Nakedness, won the 1999 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, best first book, Africa, and has been adapted for radio as a BBC Play of the Week. His novel The Sun by Night won the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book Africa. His novel The Other Crucifix won the 2011 IPPY award. His is also the winner of the 2021 African Literature Association's Book of the Year Award for Creative Writing.

Jules Marchal was a Belgian diplomat and historian, who wrote extensively on the history of colonial exploitation in the Belgian Congo. Originally writing in Dutch, under the pseudonym A. M. Delathuy, he later published studies in French under his own name. Adam Hochschild, in his bestselling King Leopold's Ghost, praised Marchal's work as "the best scholarly overview by far, encyclopedic in scope".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kojo Laing</span> Ghanaian novelist and poet (1946–2017)

B. Kojo Laing or Bernard Kojo Laing was a Ghanaian novelist and poet, whose writing is characterised by its hybridity, whereby he uses Ghanaian Pidgin English and vernacular languages alongside standard English. His first two novels in particular – Search Sweet Country (1986) and Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) – were praised for their linguistic originality, both books including glossaries that feature the author's neologisms as well as Ghanaian words.

<i>The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born</i> (album) 1991 studio album by Branford Marsalis

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is a jazz album by Branford Marsalis, leading a trio with Jeff "Tain" Watts and Robert Hurst and with guest appearances from Wynton Marsalis and Courtney Pine. It was recorded May 16–18, 1991, at CTS Studio A, Wembley, England, and June 24, 1991, at RCA Studio B in New York, New York. It peaked at number 3 on the Top Jazz Albums chart.

Kwei-Armah is a Ga surname, which means "to find the way". Notable people with the surname include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayesha Harruna Attah</span> Ghanaian-born fiction writer (born 1983)

Ayesha Harruna Attah is a Ghanaian-born fiction writer. She lives in Senegal.

This Earth, My Brother is a 1971 novel by Ghanaian novelist Kofi Awoonor published, later republished by Heinemann as part of the influential African Writers Series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women Cross DMZ</span> Non-profit organization

Women Cross DMZ (WCDMZ) is a non-profit organization mobilizing women around the world to promote peace in Korea, as well as denuclearization and demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula. Founded in 2014 by Christine Ahn, a Korean American peace activist, the advocacy and education organization of feminists, lawyers and peace activists calls for a formal end to the Korean War and the replacement of the armistice agreement with a peace agreement. In 2015, WCDMZ made international headlines when it organized a historic crossing of the heavily armed De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) that separates North Korea from South Korea at the 38th parallel.

<i>The Emergence of African Fiction</i> 1972 academic study on African literature by Charles Larson

The Emergence of African Fiction is a 1972 academic monograph by American scholar Charles R. Larson. It was published initially by Indiana University Press, and again, in a slightly revised edition, in 1978 by Macmillan. Larson's study has elicited very different responses: it was praised as an early and important book in the study and appreciation of African literature in the West, but for others it remained stuck in a Eurocentric, even colonizing mode in which Western aesthetics were still the unspoken standard for artistic assessment.

The Healers is a novel by Ayi Kwei Armah. It was Armah's fifth novel which was published in 1979.

Ghanaian literature is literature produced by authors from Ghana or in the Ghanaian diaspora. It starts with a long oral tradition, was influenced heavily by western literature during colonial rule, and became prominent with a post-colonial nationalist tradition in the mid-20th century. The current literary community continues with a diverse network of voices both within and outside the country, including in film, theatre, and modern digital formats such as blogging.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah". The Complete Review.
  2. "Two Thousand Seasons". Goodreads. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  3. "Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah - AbeBooks". www.abebooks.com. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  4. Nwahunanya, Chinyere (1991). "A Vision of the Ideal: Armah's Two Thousand Seasons". MFS Modern Fiction Studies. 37 (3): 549–560. doi:10.1353/mfs.0.0615. ISSN   1080-658X.
  5. "My Bookshelf, Myself – My 10 Favorite Books: Gloria Steinem", T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 22 January 2016.

Further reading