Editing Kofi Awoonor

{{Short description|Ghanaian poet and author (1935–2013)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|honorific-prefix   = 
|name               = Kofi Awoonor
|honorific-suffix   = 
|image              = KofiAwoonor.jpg
|imagesize          = 150px
|smallimage         = <!--If this is specified, "image" should not be.-->
|alt                = 
|caption            = 
|order              = 8th [[Ghana]]
|office             = Permanent Representative to the United Nations
|term_start         = 1990
|term_end           = 1994
|president          = [[Jerry Rawlings]]
|predecessor        = [[James Victor Gbeho]]
|successor          = George Lamptey 
|birth_date         = {{Birth date|df=yes|1935|03|13}}
|birth_place        = [[Wheta]], [[Gold Coast (British Colony)|Gold Coast]], [[Ghana]]
|death_date         = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2013|09|21|1935|03|13}}
|death_place        = [[Nairobi]], [[Kenya]]
|restingplace       = 
|restingplacecoordinates = 
|birthname          = George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams
|nationality        = Ghanaian
|party              = 
|otherparty         =  <!--For additional political affiliations-->
|spouse             = 
|partner            =  <!--For those with a domestic partner and not married-->
|relations          = [[Nii Parkes]] (nephew)
|children           = 
|residence          = 
|alma_mater         = {{Plainlist|
*[[University of Ghana]]
*[[University of London]]
*[[State University of New York]]
}}
|occupation         = Poet, author, academic and diplomat
|profession         = 
|cabinet            = 
|committees         = 
|portfolio          = 
|religion           = 
|signature          = 
|signature_alt      = 
|website            = 
|footnotes          = 
}}

'''Kofi Awoonor''' (born '''George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams'''; 13 March 1935 – 21 September 2013) was a [[Ghana]]ian poet, [[author]] and [[diplomat]]. His  work combined the poetic traditions of his native [[Ewe (people)|Ewe]] people with contemporary and religious symbolism to depict [[Africa]] during [[Decolonisation of Africa|decolonization]]. He started writing under the name '''George Awoonor-Williams''',<ref>Hans M. Zell, Carol Bundy & Virginia Coulon (eds), ''A New Reader's Guide to African Literature'', Heinemann Educational Books, 1983, p. 355.</ref> and was also published as '''Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor'''. He taught African literature at the [[University of Ghana]]. Professor Awoonor was among those who were killed in the [[Westgate shopping mall shooting|September 2013 attack]] at [[Westgate (Kenyan shopping mall)|Westgate shopping mall]] in [[Nairobi]], [[Kenya]], where he was a participant at the [[Hay Festival|Storymoja Hay Festival]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Prof. Awoonor dies in Al-Shabab attack in Kenyan Mall|url=http://www.citifmonline.com/index.php?id=1.1540045|publisher=citifmonline.com|date=22 September 2013}}</ref><ref name="telegraph">{{cite news|title=Nairobi shopping mall attacks: Kofi Awoonor, Ghanaian poet, killed in Westgate Attack|author=Alice Vincent|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/10326144/Nairobi-shopping-mall-attacks-Kofi-Awoonor-Ghanaian-poet-killed-in-Westgate-Attack.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923130321/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/10326144/Nairobi-shopping-mall-attacks-Kofi-Awoonor-Ghanaian-poet-killed-in-Westgate-Attack.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=23 September 2013|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|date=22 September 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Somalia's al-Shabab claims Nairobi Westgate Kenya attack|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24191606|publisher=BBC News|date=22 September 2013|access-date=22 September 2013}}</ref>

==Early life==
George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams was born in [[Wheta]],<ref name="BBC">{{Cite news |date=2013-09-23 |title=Kofi Awoonor: Remembering a Ghanaian poet |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-24213762 |access-date=2023-12-15}}</ref> in the [[Volta region]] of what was then the [[Gold Coast (British colony)|Gold Coast]], present-day Ghana. He was the eldest of 10 children in the family.<ref>Jocelyn Edwards, [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/kofi-awoonor-death-_n_3991296.html "Ghana Mourns Kofi Awoonor Death"], ''Huff Post Books'', 25 September 2013.</ref> He was a paternal descendant of the Awoonor-Williams family of [[Sierra Leone Creole]] descent. His grandmother was an Ewe [[dirge]] singer.<ref name=":0" /> 

== Education ==
He attended [[Achimota School]] and then proceeded to the University of Ghana, graduating in 1960.<ref name="Britannica" /> While at university he wrote his first poetry book, ''Rediscovery'', published in 1964. Like the rest of his work, ''Rediscovery'' is rooted in African oral poetry. His early works were inspired by the singing and verse of his native [[Ewe people]],<ref name="telegraph" /> and he later published translations of the work of three Ewe dirge singers (''Guardians of the Sacred Word: Ewe Poetry'', 1973).<ref>Nii Ayikwei Parkes, [http://africasacountry.com/a-tribute-to-kofi-awoonor-the-story-of-sankofa/ "A Tribute to Kofi Awoonor: The Story of Sankofa"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140628185601/http://africasacountry.com/a-tribute-to-kofi-awoonor-the-story-of-sankofa/ |date=28 June 2014 }}, Africa is a Country, 1 October 2013.</ref>

He studied literature at [[University College London]], earning a Master's Degree in 1970.<ref name="Britannica" /> He got his Ph.D. at [[SUNY at Stony Brook]], in New York in 1972.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Poetry |date=2023-03-03 |title=Kofi Awoonor |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kofi-awoonor |access-date=2023-03-03 |website=Poetry Foundation |language=en}}</ref>

== Career ==
After graduating in 1960, Awoonor worked as a researcher for the [[Institute of African Studies|Institute for African Studies]] and began participating in the [[Pan-Africanism|pan-African]] campaigns of [[Kwame Nkrumah]]. He was appointed to the Ghana Film Corporation. He helped to found the Ghana Playhouse, where he played the lead role in [[Wole Soyinka]]'s ''[[The Lion and the Jewel]]''.<ref name="BBC" /> In the 1960s, he edited the literary journal ''[[Okyeame]]'' and was an associate editor of ''[[Transition Magazine]]''.<ref name="Britannica" /><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/23/kofi-awoonor|title=Kofi Awoonor obituary|first=Lyn|last=Innes|newspaper=The Guardian|date=23 September 2013}}</ref>

While in England, he wrote several radio plays for the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]], and began using the name Kofi Awoonor.<ref>[[Siga Fatima Jagne]], Pushpa Naidu Parekh (eds),
 [https://books.google.com/books?id=3iibMu0Qjs8C&dq=kofi+awoonor+williams&pg=PA53 "Kofi Awoonor (1935–)"], in ''Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook'', Routledge, 1998, p. 53.</ref>

He spent the early 1970s in the United States, studying and teaching at [[Stony Brook University]] (then called SUNY at Stony Brook) where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1972.<ref>Deon J. Hampton, [http://www.newsday.com/news/world/kofi-awoonor-killed-in-kenya-mall-attack-was-stony-brook-professor-1.6120113#! "Kofi Awoonor killed in Kenya mall attack, was Stony Brook professor"], ''Long Island Newsday'', 22 September 2013.</ref> While in the United States he wrote ''[[This Earth, My Brother]]'' and ''Night of My Blood'', both books published in 1971.

Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 as head of the English department at the [[University of Cape Coast]]. Within months he was arrested for helping a soldier accused of trying to overthrow the military government and was imprisoned without trial. His sentence was remitted in October 1976.<ref name=Britannica /><ref name="Who What When">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/whowrotewhatwhen0000unse/mode/2up |title=Who Wrote What When? |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1999 |isbn=0-684-85822-3 |location=London |pages=41 |archive-url=}}</ref> ''The House by the Sea'' (1978) is about his time in jail.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Awoonor |first=Kofi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aDKsAAAAIAAJ |title=The House by the Sea |date=1978 |publisher=Greenfield Review Press |isbn=978-0-912678-33-7 |language=en}}</ref>  

Awoonor was Ghana's ambassador to Brazil from 1984 to 1988, before serving as ambassador to Cuba.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/46064/Kofi-Awoonor |title=Kofi Awoonor (Ghanaian author) |access-date=24 September 2013 |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> From 1990 to 1994, Awoonor was Ghana's [[Permanent Representative to the United Nations]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.un.int/ghana/past_ambassadors.html |title=Permanent Mission of Ghana to the United Nations – Past Ambassadors |access-date=28 April 2010 |publisher=United Nations |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090510190850/http://www.un.int/ghana/past_ambassadors.html |archive-date=10 May 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-09-26 |title=Ghana {{!}} General Assembly |url=https://gadebate.un.org/en/68/ghana |access-date=2023-12-15 |website=gadebate.un.org |language=en}}</ref> where he headed the committee against [[apartheid]].<ref name="Uni KN">{{cite web |url= http://www.nu.ac.za/cca/images/tow/TOW2004/Kofi.htm |title= Kofi Awoonor |access-date=9 September 2007 |publisher= University of KwaZulu-Natal |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071104125546/http://www.nu.ac.za/cca/images/tow/TOW2004/Kofi.htm <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 4 November 2007}}</ref> He was also a former Chairman of the [[Council of State (Ghana)|Council of State]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Senior Ghanaian citizen, Awoonor killed in Kenya gun attack |author=Emmanuel K. Dogbevi|url=http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2013/09/22/senior-ghanaian-citizen-awoonor-killed-in-kenya-gun-attack/|work=Ghana Business News|publisher=GBN|date=22 September 2013}}</ref> the main advisory body to the [[president of Ghana]], serving in that position from 2009 to January 2013.<ref name="BBC" />

== Poetry ==
The early poetry of Awoonor borrows from the Ewe oral tradition. In his critical book Guardians of the ''Sacred Word and Ewe Poetry'', he rendered Ewe poetry in translation ''(1974)''. ''The Breast of the Earth: A Study of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara is another work of literary criticism (1975).''<ref name=":0" />

== Death ==
On 21 September 2013, Awoonor was among those killed in an [[Westgate shopping mall shooting|attack]] at the [[Westgate (Kenyan shopping mall)|Westgate shopping mall]] in [[Nairobi]]. He was in Kenya as a participant in the [[Hay Festival|Storymoja Hay Festival]], a four-day celebration of writing, thinking and storytelling, at which he was due to perform on the evening of his death. His nephew [[Nii Parkes]], who was attending the same literary festival, has written about meeting him for the first time that day.<ref name=NiiParkes>Nii Parkes, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/28/kofi-awoonor-nii-parkes-hero "My hero: Kofi Awoonor by Nii Parkes"], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 28 September 2013.</ref> The Ghanaian government confirmed Awoonor's death the next day. His son Afetsi Awoonor, who had accompanied him, was also shot, but was later discharged from hospital.<ref name="telegraph"/>

Awoonor's remains were flown from Nairobi to [[Accra]], Ghana, on 25 September 2013.<ref>[http://petchary.wordpress.com/tag/kofi-anyidoho/ Kofi Anyidoho, "African Postman: Death of a Poet"], Petchary's Blog, 18 September 2013.</ref>

His body was [[Cremation|cremated]] and buried at a particular spot in his hometown at [[Wheta]] in the [[Volta Region]]. Also there was no crying or mourning at his funeral all according to his will before death.<ref>{{cite web|title=Prof. Awoonor cremated|url=http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2013/october-4th/prof-awoonor-cremated.php|work=Daily Graphic|via=JoyOnline|date= 4 October 2013|access-date=4 February 2014}}</ref>

==Works==

=== Poetry ===
*''Rediscovery and Other Poems'' (Mbari Publications, 1964)<ref name="Republika">{{cite journal |date=December 1978 |title=Biografski dodaci |trans-title=Biographic appendices |url=http://dhk.hr/casopis-republika/ |language=sh |journal=Republika: Časopis za kulturu i društvena pitanja (Izbor iz novije afričke književnosti) |volume=XXXIV |issue=12 |pages=1424–1427 |place=[[Zagreb]], [[Socialist Republic of Croatia|SR Croatia]] }}</ref>
*''Night of My Blood'' (Doubleday, 1971) – poems that explore Awoonor's roots, and the impact of foreign rule in Africa<ref name="Who What When" /><ref name="Republika" />
*''Ride Me, Memory'' (1973)<ref name=":0" />
*''The House by the Sea'' (Greenfield Review Press, 1978)
*''Until the Morning After: Selected Poems, 1963–85'' (Greenfield Review Press, 1987)
*''The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems, 1964–2013'' (Amalion / University of Nebraska Press, 2014)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201309/113682.php |title=Kofi Awoonor's new book The Promise of Hope: New and selected poems |access-date=27 September 2013 |publisher=Joy Online |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926203404/http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201309/113682.php |archive-date=26 September 2013 }}</ref>

=== Novels ===
*''[[This Earth, My Brother]]'' (Doubleday, 1971) – a cross between a novel and a poem<ref name="Who What When" /><ref name="Republika" />
*''Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa'' (Africa World Press, 1992)

=== Non-fiction ===
* ''The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara'' (Anchor Press, 1975; {{ISBN|0-385-07053-5}})
* ''The Ghana Revolution: Background Account from a Personal Perspective'' (1984)
* ''Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times'' (Sedco, 1990)
* ''Africa: The Marginalized Continent'' (1994)
* ''The African Predicament: Collected Essays'' (Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2006; {{ISBN|9789988550820}})

=== As editor or translator ===

* ''Messages: Poems From Ghana'' (1971). Eds. Kofi Awoonor & G. Adali-Mortty.
* ''Guardians of the Sacred Word: Ewe Poetry'' (1974). Trans. Kofi Awoonor.

=== Poems ===
* The Cathedral
* The Weaver Bird
* Across a New Dawn
* A Call
* On the Gallows Once
* Lament of the Silent Sister
* Had Death Not Had Me in Tears
* Songs of Sorrow
* First Circle
* A Death Foretold<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kofi Awoonor - Poet Kofi Awoonor Poems |url=https://www.poemhunter.com/kofi-awoonor/ |access-date=2023-03-03 |website=Poem Hunter |language=en-us}}</ref>

==Understanding and interpreting his works==

It is said that Awoonor wrote a great number of his poems as if he was envisioning his own demise.
But he is a peculiar and unique writer, one who strives, almost too hard, to bring his ancestry and culture into his poems, sometimes even borrowing words from the local Ewe dialect.
Being such a strong and avid practitioner of the traditional religion meant that he was of a relict species. Especially for one so highly educated, it was an even rarer phenomenon.
That awareness, not only that he was a relict specimen as an individual, but that the entire culture was suffering entropy, may have come through his poems in a manner that would suggest at first that he was writing about his mortal end.
Besides the personal and cultural lament, Awoonor also shrewdly decried what he would have considered the decadent spectre of Western influences (religions, social organisation and economic philosophy) on the history and fortunes of African people in general. He would lambast the thoughtless exuberance with which Africans themselves embraced such things, and gradually engineered what he would have considered a self-degradation that went far beyond a loss of cultural identity. He would often construct his writings to look at these things through the lens of his own Ewe culture.

==Further reading==
* [[Robert Fraser (writer)|Robert Fraser]], ''West African Poetry: A Critical History'', Cambridge University Press (1986), {{ISBN|0-521-31223-X}}
* [[Kwame Anthony Appiah]] and [[Henry Louis Gates]] (eds), ''Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience'', Basic Civitas Books (1999), {{ISBN|0-465-00071-1}} – p.&nbsp;153.
* Lauret E. Savoy, [[Eldridge M. Moores]] and Judith E. Moores (eds), ''Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology,'' ([[Trinity University (Texas)#Trinity University Press|Trinity University Press]], 2006).

==References==
{{Reflist}}
Kofi Awoonor

==External links==
* [http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2013/09/22/senior-ghanaian-citizen-awoonor-killed-in-kenya-gun-attack Report on the death of Kofi Awoonor], 22 September 2013. 
* [http://theconversation.com/terror-in-kenya-literature-and-laughs-turn-into-pain-and-loss-18501 Paula Kahumbu of Princeton University and director of the Story Moja Hay Festival relates her time with Awoonor the Friday evening before his death]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071104125546/http://www.nu.ac.za/cca/images/tow/TOW2004/Kofi.htm Biographical details], University of KwaZulu-Natal.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061231125000/http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/literari/2006/jun/18/literari-18-06-2006-001.htm Interview], ''Sun'' newspaper (Nigeria), 18 June 2006.
* [https://www.scribd.com/doc/24563558/Songs-of-Sorrow Poem: Songs of Sorrow by Kofi Awoonor]
* Francis Kwarteng, [http://vibeghana.com/2013/09/23/a-tribute-to-prof-kofi-awoonor/ "A Tribute to Prof. Kofi Awoonor"], ''VibeGhana'', 23 September 2013.

{{s-start}}
{{S-dip}}
{{s-bef|before=[[James Victor Gbeho]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=Permanent Representative to the United Nations | years=1990–1994}}
{{s-aft|after=George Lamptey}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Awoonor, Kofi}}
[[Category:1935 births]]
[[Category:2013 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Ghanaian poets]]
[[Category:20th-century Ghanaian male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century Ghanaian poets]]
[[Category:21st-century Ghanaian male writers]]
[[Category:Alumni of Achimota School]]
[[Category:Alumni of University College London]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of Ghana to Brazil]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of Ghana to Cuba]]
[[Category:Awoonor-Renner family]]
[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Kenya]]
[[Category:Ewe people]]
[[Category:Ghanaian male poets]]
[[Category:Ghanaian murder victims]]
[[Category:Ghanaian non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Ghanaian novelists]]
[[Category:Ghanaian people murdered abroad]]
[[Category:Male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Members of the Council of State (Ghana)]]
[[Category:People murdered in Kenya]]
[[Category:Permanent representatives of Ghana to the United Nations]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Cape Coast]]
[[Category:University of Ghana alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Ghana]]
[[Category:People from Volta Region]]
[[Category:Ghanaian people of Sierra Leonean descent]]