A Dissertation Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For A Master S Degree In Anglophone Literature And Civilization

Ahmed Draia University – Adrar
Faculty of Letters and Languages
Department of English Letters and Language
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Master’s Degree in
Anglophone Literature and Civilization
Presented by: Supervised by:
Nour Elhouda Aliane Dr. Fouad Mami
Academic Year: 2016– 2017
African Historical Novels: The Interplay
between History and Literature in Ayi
Kwei Armah’s The Healers and Manu
Herbstein’s Ama: A Story of the Atlantic
Slave Trade

Dedication
I dedicate this work to my parents, my sister Yasmina, my brothers Adlane and
Othmane, and especially my supervisor Dr. Fouad Mami who supported, advised and
guided me throughout this year; and to all my professors.

Acknowledgements
It has been a long road, but here I am at the end; and there are so many people to
whom thanks I extend! I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Dr.
Fouad Mami, for it has been my privilege to work closely with him. I have enjoyed the
opportunity to learn from his knowledge and experience.
I would like also to express my deepest gratitude to every single one of my
professors for their wiser counsels and their immense efforts to help me during those
last five years. I appreciate their constructive criticism and prompt responses to my
queries. Thanks to all of them!

Contents
Abstract …...……………………………...………............................................................I
General Introduction…………………………….…………………………..…………..1
Chapter One: The Apeals for the Past
1.1. Definition of Historical Fiction………....................................…..........................5
1.2. Remaking History: Ethics, Politics, and Culture……………………...........…….7
1.3. New Historicism and Literarture …………………………....……………….......12
1.3.1 History and Literary Text…………………………………………………..12
1.3.2 New Historicism……………………………………………………………14
1.4. Historical Bias……………………………………................................................18
Chapter Two: Reading Ayi Kwei Amah
2.1. Political Issues after the Independence of Ghana and during the 70s: From Dream to
Despair……………………………………………………………………..………….22
2.1.1 The Non-Literary Text…………………………………...............................22
2.1.1.1 Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah……………………………………22
2.1.1.2 Ghana after Kwame Nkrumah……………………………….…..24
2.2 A Brief Introduction to Ayi Kwei Armah…………………………………………….25
2.2.1 Ayi Kwei Armah as a Writer and Intellectual……………………………25
2.2.2 Critical Perspective on Ayi Kwei Armah………………………………...26
2.3 Reading Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Healers…………………………………………..28
2.3.1 The Corrupt Leaders……………………………………………………….28
2.4. The Historical Bias in The Healers………………………………………………...36
Chapter Three: Reading Manu Herbstein
3.1 A Brief Introduction to Manu Herbstein………………………………………...….40

3.1.1 Manu Herbestein’s Life…………………………………………………..40
3.1.2 The Critical Pespective on Ama: a Strory of the Atlantic Slave Trade…41
3.2 Conflict and Violence in Ghana in the Late of the Twentieth Century……………43
3.2.1 The Tribal Conflict in 1994 that Leads Manu Herbestein to Write His Novel..43
3.2.2. Violence against Women………………………………………………….44
3.3 Reading Manu Herbstein’s Ama:a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade…………….46
3.3.1 The Background of the Novel…………………………………………..…46
3.3.2. Disunity among Africans………………………………………………….48
3.3.3. The Women’s Issues in the Novel……………………………………..…50
General Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..56

1
Introduction
In his book "The Ethics of Memory", Avishai Margalit discusses why the Battle
of Kosovo still carries such emotional power for the Serbs, whereas the Battle of
Hastings is forgotten by the English? This interesting question and answering it offers
something about the range of feasible conditions in which people in the present day may
connect to past events. Despite the overwhelming body of academic work about history
are produced, most of the reading public has been exposed to history through cultural
texts such as novels, poems, and movies because it's the very easy and enjoyable way to
read about it. This study will focuses on the African historical novels.
Historical novel is a literary genre which uses historical figures and situations in
the past, but inserts fictive characters. By using this genre most of African historical
novelists such as Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ahmadou Kourouma,
Aminatta Forna and Manu Herbstein...etc leave us experience the past of Africa. They
deal with different Africans’ issues through different periods of time (pre-colonial,
colonial and postcolonial periods). However, the past is till now an unexplored area.
While some critics such as the American critic, Brander Matthew, who sees historical
fiction as pseudo-sanctity that teaches history, others like the Australian writer Frank
Campbell who says that if the past is another country, historical novels are forged
passports, and he claims that a writer cannot reproduce the past.
In addition, the narrator has a power to guide the reader in the direction s/he wants
them to go and encourage them to draw the conclusions s/he wants them to make.
Therefore, the African narrators are just anticipating and imagining the memory of
Africa by creating characters that would take an important part in the lived experience

2
of the community’s members. In other word, it is important to distinct between memory
and history which is mostly not observed by non-historians who easily can be more
emotionally dragged to a past that is tailored to fit their prejudice, than to a past that is
veracious and neutral. Therefore, how should the reader approach the historical literary
texts and how history is represented in those texts?
Readers are interested in historical fiction, both for enjoyment and as source of
education, but what especially intrigued me about this genre is the resonance between
the past and the present. I became sensitized to the overall pattern of how the interplay
between past story and present crises of specific community functioned, and so I think it
might be interesting to see what happened if, I signal out some set of problems that are
provided by the author of the novel and connect them to the issues in the era where it
was written. History knows that many African communities have passed through harsh
conditions, severe traditions, slavery, colonization, racism, corruption…etc For this
study I have chosen two African historical novels: Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Healers, and
Manu Herbstein’s Ama: a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Through these novels I will
examine certain things that may be taken for granted due to a number of factors and
extract the motivation of the narrators that make them hand us a historical texts.
There are many theories that have studied historical novels from different angles
for instance, new critics claim that literary texts belong to no particular time, they are
universal and transcend history; the background critics who argue that the text is
produced within a specific historical context but in its literariness it remains separate
from that context; or traditional historians who assume that literary works can help us to
understand the time in which they are set: realist texts, in particular, provide imaginative
representations of specific historical moments, events or periods...etc. However,

3
because my aim is to understand history through literature, and literature through its
cultural context, I have chosen new historicism.
New Historicism is not concerned in historical events as events, but with the ways
in which events are interpreted, with the language, with the ways of conceiving the
world. Historical events are considering by New Historicists not as facts to be
documented but as texts to be read in order to aid the reader think about how human
cultures, at various historical moments, have made sense of themselves and their world.
Despite the fact that the reader cannot really know exactly what happened at any given
point in history, but he at least can know what the people interested, believed, and he
can also interpret those interpretations.
Moreover, New Historicism also leads the reader to question the primary ideas
that he takes for granted as he uses any kind of theories. It makes him also know what is
literature, how to draw the line between literary and non-literary texts. Hence, literary
critics could talk about politics, class and power, and take an interdisciplinary approach
to the study of literature. This theory wants from us to understand how a literary work
comments on and relates to its context. Thus, the archive will not just reveal that, for
instance Ama: a Story of the Slave Trade was written in 2001, but also what it was like
to live in that year, and what people (or at least novelists) thought and felt at those
historical moments.
Due to the nature of the subject and in order to answer all the questions, I relied
on analytical and comparative analysis. To do so, the paper is divided into three
chapters. The first chapter gives a general idea about historical fiction (definition, its
accuracy and plausibility). Then it shows what it means to be a historian or historical

4
novelist. Finally it introduces the theory of new historicism. In this chapter I use the
analytical analysis.
The second chapter studies the historical novel The Healers by Ghanaian writer
Ayi Kwei Armah. Because it was published in 1975, I first brings non literary text that
sees what issues held in Ghana at that period, and these issues are about the regime
corruption. Then, it glances briefly at Ayi Kwei Armah’s life, thinking, and the critical
perspective on him. Finally, it extracts the same political issues from the novel.
The last chapter studies the historical novel Ama: a Story of the Atlantic Slave
Trade by South African novelist Manu Herbstein. The novel was published in 2001, and
the story sets in Ghana too. The chapter tries to compare between what problems held in
Ghana and those presented in the novel. Also, it briefly discusses Manu Herbstein’s life,
and the critical perceptive on his novel. The paper ends with a general conclusion.
Finally, hope this simple study would be useful to enrich the library of our
department of English and to participate in giving knowledge of some parts of the
historical fiction genre and African literature. Because if those people their aim was to
find solutions to African issues and thus saving the continent, our aim is also to resist
the ignorance and the backwardness.

5
Chapter One: The Apeals for the Past

6
1.1 Definition
What is historical fiction? A direct and easiest answer could be ‘any story set in
the past’. However, this simplest definition raises a number of questions such as how far
back must a novel be set to make it historical: twenty years, fifty years, hundred years?
The past of whom: the reader or the author? Some readers may ask for novels, that
contain historical details, set in for example 1960s or 1970s which according to them is
considered as a historical fiction because it was set before they were born, and they
want to experience and live the life of that period. These kinds of novels are not
concerned in this research paper, but the ones in which the author is writing from
research rather than personal experience1
which means novels will take place before the
author’s existence.
The fittest definition for this research, as professor Hollinger gave; Historical
Fiction is a genre of imaginative narratives set in the past, whose authors make a
deliberate effort to convey chronologically remote settings, cultures, and personages
with accuracy, plausibility, and depth2
. Fiction means the work has to be imaginative
i.e. it needs to be made up. Unlike historians who reconstruct and interpret the past
accurately and truthfully, authors have to deceive the readers.
Stephan Paul Bortolotti says:
Etymologically speaking, both the words history and story derive from the same word
historia, and originally both words were defined as an account of either imaginary
events as well as events supposed to be true. The two words have since evolved
1
Sarah L.Jonson, Historical Fiction II: A Guide to the Genre (Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2009),
2.
2
Bruce Holsinger, “Plages, Witches, and Wars: The World of Historical Fiction,” (University of
Virginia), https://www.coursera.org/learn/historical-fiction/lecture/YgEoO/professor-holsinger-
provides-an-overview-of-plagues-witches-and-war

7
separately so that history has come to mean an account of past real events, and story
refers to less formal accounts of past events and accounts of fictional events. As a
result, this etymological evolution has allowed some contemporary novelists on the
one hand to regard history as unreliable, and on the other hand to regard fiction as
another way of writing history, of offering a substitute for it, or even creating an
alternative history. Simply stated, a true historical novel will offer an account of the
past which it purports to be true, even claiming to correct or substitute for authorized
history, but which all too well aware of its own [mis]representation of that truth...3
That means that although the story is imaginary, it is within the realm of possibility that
such events could have occurred. Therefore, the reader should be deceived into
believing the false world created in a novel or a story is a real world.
The second part of definition ‘whose authors make a deliberate effort to convey
chronologically remote settings, cultures, and personages’. At the beginning the
question has been asked is how far back must a novel be set to make it historical? In
order to understand chronologically remote we should know the first novel that has been
considered as historical novel. Generally, Sir Walter Scott’s “Waverley” is considered
to be the first historical novel. Published anonymously in 1814, ‘Waverley’ was the first
novel in Scott’s popular series about eighteen-century Scottish history. Scott’s attempt
to accurately portray the background and qualities of ordinary people involved in the
1745 Jacobite rebellion against the British crown this what made it different from
predecessors’ works. With its sub-title “Tis Sixty Years Since”, “Waverley” established
the original cutoff date for historical fiction. This indicates that chronological remote
should be at least 60 years before the author’s life and time.
3
Stephan Paul Bortolotti , The Finagling Art of Historical Fiction (Department of General Education,
Midstate College, Illinois, USA 2015), 1.

8
Finally, historical fiction conveys its settings and its characters with a high degree
of accuracy, plausibility, and depth. Accuracy how authors of historical fiction work
with archival sources and with historical facts to create accurate representations of
historical moments? Novelists who write about the past are often asked about the
importance of historical accuracy in their work. This is perhaps a strange question;
history, after all, is not an exact science.
The past no longer exists, so how could they measure the accuracy of their view
of it? Historical fiction is all about accordance with the sources, paying attention to
details and not veering off into fantasy. However, the most difficult characteristic of
historical fiction rather than accuracy is the word Plausibility which is the measure of
great historical fiction. As professor Hollinger explained: “…if a certain scene or
chapter in a historical novel just doesn't seem like it could have taken place at that time
and in that place and under those particular circumstances, it fails the test of
plausibility…” that means to enjoy a story, reader need to feel that the author's world is
- within its own logic and plausible. He has to believe each single description of the
scenes, the dialogue and everything were really had taking place in the past; authors do
not want to hear the reader says "I don't believe a word you say" if he does not believe
he would not turn the pages. That the most difficult task for the authors of historical
fiction, based on reality or not, they have to create another believable world.
1.2. Remaking History: Ethics, Politics, and Culture
“I read these works with lively interest; but I also took objection to them. Among other
things, I was offended by the way in which Charles the Bold and Louis XI were treated,
which seemed . . . to be completely contradictory to the historical evidence. I studied . . .

9
the contemporary reports . . . and became convinced that a Charles the Bold or a Louis XI
as they were pictured by Scott had never existed. . . . The comparison convinced me that
the historical sources themselves were more beautiful and in any case more interesting
than romantic fiction. I turned away completely from fiction and resolved to avoid any
invention and imagination in my work and to keep strictly to the facts.”4
(Leopold Von
Ranke)
Fact or fiction? These two words have long been debated about privileging
historians over novelists in endeavour to divulge the truth from the past. This chapter
will focus on the intersection between these writers’ use of fiction and history. It will try
to understand a historian (as destination to understand historical novelist) while writing
about the past because he has often enjoyed a special status as the one who brings a
documented fact.
By definition, fiction (particularly historical fiction) something that is not true, but
it is a product of imagination. Therefore, historical fiction, can lay no claim to
disclosing the reality of the past. However, it has the right to query the credibility of
history. If any author does not remake the past, there would not have been history at the
first place; thus what is history? First it should be highlighting that history is not the
past but it is the stories that authors tell about the past. Edward Hallett Carr makes a
distinction between history and chronicle. According to him history is an exertion to
discern and construe the past, to expound the bases and roots of things in
comprehensible terms. On the other hand, chronicle was the impel series of event
arranged in order without any endeavour to make connection between them. While the
chronicler is satisfied to show that one event came after another; the historian had to
4
John H. Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 35.

10
prove that one incident caused another 5
. To do so, how do they use historical
documents? And how do they contend that they reach the truth?
How truth is treated in history? According to John H. Arnorld, truth in history
first began with religious conflicts. He gives many examples. For instance, in Chritian
era, Protesstants and Catholics turned to history to support their opposing claims to
authority and used historical documents as source of proof. Protestants made use of
history as their ammunition to contend that their religious beliefs existed for long time,
or to disparage the Roman church. In the mid-sixteen century, writers, under the
Protestant scholar Flacius Illyricus, collected and duplicated medieval documents as
testimony for a long history of Roman Catholic corruption one of them was the
medieval heretics story of the murder of Guilhem Dejean, and to affirm their existence
before Martin Luther 6
On the other hand, in the mid-seventeenth century, groups of church scholars
known as Bollandist and Maurists, gathered positive, documentary evidence to buttress
and to enhance more its good reputation. For example, they complied ecclesiastical
histories and martyrologies, such as Acta Sanctorum (Lives of the Saints) to show that
they had sterling past7
. These examples show that people approached history and used
the historical documents to protect their present using selective evidence that serve their
conditions.
Moreover, John H. Arnold gives another example. Herodotus (484-425 BC), the
Greek historian, wrote about the historical causes of the conflicts between the Greeks
and the Persians. He gave two kinds of stories. Persian said that Phoenicians had
5
6
7
Ibid., 38

11
kidnapped Io daughter of the Greek king; that the Greeks had kidnapped Europa
daughter of the Phoenician king; and then Medea another royal daughter. Paris son of a
Phoenician ruler called Priam, was inspired by these stories; as result, he kidnapped
Helen of Troy, to make her his wife. Phoenician believed that kidnapping women was
bad, but not to the point to get very furious about: “for it is obvious that that no young
woman allows herself to abducted if she does not wish to be”8
. The Greeks raised a
great army to save Helen and ravaged the Priam Empire. Nevertheless, the Phoenician
historians claim that Io (the first woman mentioned) was not taken by force, had
become pregnant by the captain of Phoenician ship, and had chosen to go back with him
rather than shame her parents.
Herodotus did not want to believe the Persian legend. He created another fictional
story by using oral history and analyzing passages from Homer’s poem The Iliad.
Because according to him (also Homer) Helen and Paris had never been in Troy but
they stayed in Egypt. What matters here, that he doubted about history and remake it in
the way that it seemed true to him. Herodotus wrote:
So much for what Persians and Phoenicians say; and I have no intention of passing
judgement on its truth or falsity. I prefer to rely on my own knowledge, and to point out
who it was in actual fact that first injured the Greeks; then I will proceed with my history,
telling the story as I go along of small cities no less than great. Most of those which were
great once are small today; and those which in my own lifetime have grown to greatness,
8

12
were small enough in the old days. It makes no odds whether the cities I shall write of are
big or little – for in this world nobody remains prosperous for long 9
Leopold Von Ranke does not believe in historical fiction and insisted on relying
only on factual evidence, documentary research and objective historical analysis;
forgetting that these evidences were created before his existence too. Dealing only with
date and events (chronicles), it would be no need for history and human life would
contains many gaps. Every historical account has gaps, problems, contradictions, areas
of uncertainty. Therefore, history is not just stories about the past, but it is also what
historians make of it. They choose to tell about things according to religious, political,
cultural aspects which fit their own present days.
Not only historians but also historical novelist, they recreate the past and their
books might have significant amount about historical details and background but the
circumstances linked to their own present. And they try to write what their readers want
to read as J. R. Seeley says: “ When I meet a person, who does not find history
interesting, it does not occur to me to alter history- I try to alter him”10
this means that
each one has his own truth. As it has been mentioned in section one in this chapter, it
does not matter whether the author is telling the truth or not but how he succeeded to
convince his reader and trust his evidences.
9
John H. Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000),17.
10
Beverley Southgate, What is History For? (New York: Routledge, 2005), 30.

13
III. New Historicism and literature
As it has been shown in the previous section, it is challenging for a historical
novelist to totally evade himself from his personal interests and concerns, the wider
socio-cultural framework, theories, models and classificatory systems he uses to make
sense of, or interpret, the world. This section will discuss how do readers currently think
about a historical literary text? And it will focuses on the new historicism approach
1.3.1 History and Literary Text
Most readers tend to think about history in conventional way, for instance, while
reading an account of any war written by any historian in specific time, conformist
reader would ask if the account is accurate or not and what could this war inform him
about the ‘spirit of the age’ in which this war was engaged or more precisely what did
really occur and what does this event tell about history? These are common questions
asked by a traditional historian.
In contrast, another reader would read the same account of that war and he would
ask questions such as what could this account tell about political and ideological issues
of the culture and how it was represented in newspapers, magazines, tracts, government
documents, stories, speeches, drawings, and photographs at that time. In addition, Lois
Tyson suggests some other questions related to historical literary texts for instance:
what do these representations tell about how this war shaped and was shaped by the
cultures that represented it? And what do the interpretations tell about interpreters?”11
These are questions asked by a new historicist. Traditional historians are totally
11
Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today : A User-Friendly Guide (New York, Routledge, 2006), 282.

14
absorbed in the accuracy and objectivity of historical accounts; new historicists are
interested with the representation of historical events and what those representations
reveal about cultures12
. How, specifically, do new historical concepts operate in the
domain of literary criticism? Although new historical literary criticism embeds our
study of literary texts in the study of history, as we’ve just seen, isn’t what it used to
be13
.
Accordingly, Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle broadly give four models that
relate history and literature. New critics claim that “Literary texts belong to no
particular time, they are universal and transcend history: the historical context of their
production and reception has no bearing on the literary work which is aesthetically
autonomous, having its own laws, being a world unto itself.” 14
. Secondly, the
background critics, they are also known as philological critics, see that “The historical
context of a literary work – the circumstances surrounding its production – is integral to
its proper understanding: the text is produced within a specific historical context but in
its literariness it remains separate from that context.” 15
Thirdly, reflectionists or
traditional historians assume that “Literary works can help us to understand the time in
which they are set: realist texts, in particular, provide imaginative representations of
specific historical moments, events or periods.”16
These three theories share one point;
that is they see literature and history as radically two different disciplines.
However, the last model which is related to new historicists, it argues that
“Literary texts are bound up with other discourses and rhetorical structures: they are
12
Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today : A User-Friendly Guide (New York, Routledge, 2006), 290.
13
Ibid., 291.
14
Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (Great
Britain: Pearson Education Limited.,2004), 113.
15
Ibid., 113.
16
Ibid., 113

15
part of a history that is still in the process of being written.”17
(Andrew Bennett and
Nicholas Royle, 113). This indicates that to interrogate about the connection between
literature and history is the wrong question because this question separate between the
two. Therefore, new historicists recognize extent to which history is textual, as a
rejection of the autonomy of the literary text and as an attempt to displace the
objectivity of interpretation in general. The idea of history as text also represented by
Jacques Derrida when he says: “The age already in the past is in fact constituted in
every respect as a text”18
that is means that the knowledge of the past is necessarily
interposed by texts. This knowledge of the past cannot be without interpretations as
Nietzsche said: ‘facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations’19
Just as
literary texts need to be read, so do the ‘facts’ of history. Therefore, the question today,
as Denis Hollier argues, is no longer "What is literature?" but rather, "What is not?"20
1.3.2 New Historicism
Early New Historicists like Stephen Greenblatt , who was the one that coined this
term in 1980, and Catherine Gallagher were influenced by three theorists: Michel
Foucault, Clifford Geertz, and Raymond Williams. Greenblatt states that:
Self-fashioning is in effect the Renaissance version of these control mechanisms, the
cultural system of meanings that creates specific individuals by governing the passage
17
Britain: Pearson Education Limited.,2004), 113.
18
Maria-Daniella Dick and Julian Wolfreys, Derrida Wordbook ( Great Britain:Edinburgh University
Press, 2013), 345.
19
Babette E. Babich, Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and
Life (New York: SUNY Press, 1994), 37.
20
Anton Kaes, New Historicism: Writing Literary History in the Postmodern Era (University of
Wisconsin Press, 1992), 2.

16
from abstract potential to concrete historical embodiment. Literature functions within this
system in three interlocking ways: as a manifestation of the concrete behavior of its
particular author, as itself the expression of the codes by which behavior is shaped, and as
a reflection upon those codes.21
Historical literary text is linked to renaissance self-fashioning, which is a concept
used to describe how someone constructs his identity and public persona in agreement
with a certain set of cultural rules and regulations, in three interlocking ways. First, a
work of literature mirrors its author’s conduct, values and point of view. It also reflects
those “control mechanisms” and the codes that shape conduct. In addition, it comments
on those control mechanisms and codes. Greenblatt also wants to show how the social
world influences the language that writers use, and how the language that writers use
reflects the social world. He states that:
Language, like other sign systems, is a collective construction; our interpretive task must
be to grasp more sensitively the consequences of this fact by investigating both the social
presence to the world of the literary text and the social presence of the world in the
literary text. 22
According to new historicist when an author pens, he is not just penning his own,
unique language. The language that he adopts, namely inclusive of all the languages of
all these different people that he interacts with over the course of his life. In that sense
the language that he uses is a “collective construction”. In addition to Greenblatt,
Foucault connects between discourse and power. This connection is very important to
21
Stephan Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago and
London, The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 3-4.
22
Ibid., 5.

17
the new historicist because he wants to examine how power relationships are reflected
in literary works which are, of course, mini-discourses in themselves. Foucault states
that: “Discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination,
but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is
to be seized.”23
Accordingly, there is no single or universal spirit of an age, and there is no decent
overwhelming explanation of history that gives a single key to all attitudes of a given
culture. There is only an unstable interaction among discourses, the meanings of which
the historian can try to examine, although that examination will be deficient,
considering for only a part of the historical depiction. Moreover, For Foucault power is
never fully restricted to only one person or a single level of society. In the same sense,
in literature power circulates in a culture through exchanges of ideas through the various
discourses a culture produces. Therefore, reader’s interpretations of literature shape and
are shaped by the culture in which he lives.
Moreover, Clifford Geertz sees the culture of people as “an ensemble of texts,
themselves ensembles, which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of
those to whom they properly belong.”24
In his concept of culture-as-text became super
important to the new historicists because it allowed them to look at archives and to
analyze them along with literary texts. Geertz’s ideas challenge the distinction between
“literary” and “non-literary” texts. The new historicists followed in Geertz’s footsteps
by also challenging that distinction.
Furthermore, literary critics are the output of a particular culture and a particular
time and any kind of theory they use is also restricted by the historical moment and
23
Omar Sougou, Writing Across Cultures: Gender Politics and Difference in the Fiction of Buchi
Emecheta (New York: Rodopi, 2002), 108.
24
Adam Kuper, Culture:The Anthropologists’ Account (The United States of America, Harvard
University Press, 1999), 112.

18
place that they are living in. As result, the perspective of the theory would be restricted
too.
One of the recurrent criticisms of new historicism is that it is insufficiently theorized. The
criticism is certainly just, and yet it seems curiously out of touch with the simultaneous
fascination with theory and resistance to it that has shaped from the start our whole
attempt to rethink the practice of literary and cultural studies. We speculated about first
principles and respected the firmer theoretical commitments of other members of our
discussion group, but both of us were and remain deeply skeptical of the notion that we
should formulate an abstract system and then apply it to literary works. We doubt that it is
possible to construct such a system independent of our own time and place and of the
particular objects by which we are interested.25
Catherine Gallagher and Stephan Greenblatt argue that as new historicists they
should not be considered as theorists because their first endeavour is to rethink the
practice of literary and cultural studies and they think that theory doesn’t always get us
very far in understanding literary works.
The recentness of new historicism manifests in its critical strength: Its non
acceptance to consider the text as a sign of some prior and stable context and to see
history as a single and coherent line of progress; its acceptance of the literary historian's
own position within the historical narrative he or she charts; and in its emphasis on the
dynamic and productive character of representation.
25
Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (London: The University
of Chicago, 2000) p 2.

19
1.4. The Historical Biases
The discussion between all critics that study historical literary texts indicates that
they anticipate the interpretations of those texts and the depiction of past people and
events to be equitable and not misleading. This section will present some narrative and
causal biases that a historical novelist may make them intentionally or unintentionally
because as we have seen in previous sections authors writes to fit their interests.
Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle define narrative as a series of events in a
specific order. Sometimes the events are recited more or less chronologically and
sometimes the order of those events includes, as the narratologist Gérard Genette has
called, anachronisms (flashbacks, jumps forwards…etc), the slowing down and
speeding up of events and other distortions of the linear time-sequence. Therefore,
time is imperative to narrative26
.
In this respect, sometimes a novelist describes, analyzes, or judges an event to be
occurred in particular time other than when it actually happened. This error called the
Fallacy of Anchronism. If he locates the event too early in time, then the error is
sometimes pedantically called a "prochronism". If it is made to happen too late, then the
result is a "metachronism."27
Usually, it considered to be an unintentional because of the
writer’s carelessness and his lack of research. Nevertheless, sometimes it is used
intentionally to fit the author's interest. For example the mention of a clock in act 2
scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s plays “Julius Caesar” in the passage: “Brutus: Peace!
Count the clock. Cassius: The clock has stricken three.”28
; and the mention of a doublet,
26
Britain: Pearson Education Limited, 2004), 54.
27
David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (United State
of America: Harper and Row Publishers, 1970), 132
28
William, Shakespeare. "Julius Caesar". US: Penguin

20
a close-fitted jacket, in act 1 scene 2 of the same play: “…he plucked me open his
doublet and offered them his throat to cut”29
are an anachronism because the story of
this play dates back to 44 AD where the mechanistic clocks had not been invented yet
and Romans did not wear a doublet at that time. However, clocks were created and a
doublets were a fashion among men in Shakespeare’s time. Moreover, there is another
error called the fallacy of presentism. It is, as david hackett fischer defines it, when an
author prunes away the dead branches of the past, and then preserves green buds and
twigs which have grown into the dark forest of his contemporary world . By doing this,
the antecedent in a narrative series is falsified by being defined or interpreted in terms
of the consequent.
Narrative also includes the idea of connecting between pertinent incidents. To do
so a novelist involves another process, this is the process of causality. Sometimes the
author mistakenly believes that if event B happened after event A; as result, event B
must have happened because of A, this error called the fallacy of “pot hoc, propter hoc”.
Another fallacy called the fallacy of pro hoc, propter hoc. It is when the effect is putted
before the cause; if event A happened before event B, it cannot have happened because
of it! The effect must follow the cause. Whenever a novelist tells selective truths, their
causal models must be reductive in some degree. He tries to take a complex chain of
causes and then divided them to one or two which are simpler and ignore the rest. David
Hackett gives an example of Winston Churchill “In 1920, King Alexander of Greece
died of blood poisoning, having been bitten by a pet monkey. This event was followed
by a plebiscite, and a new king, and a bloody war with the Turks. Churchill wrote "A
quarter of a million persons died of that monkey's bite." ”30
In addition, the fallacy of
29
William, Shakespeare. "Julius Caesar". US: Penguin
30
of America: Harper and Row Publishers, 1970), 134.

21
indiscriminate pluralism is the opposite of the reductive fallacy. It happens when
notable causes are not clarified, or their relative weight is not ascertained, or both of the
cases while doing the causal explanations.
At times, some historical authors considered responsibility as cause and so
confusing ethics from agency and "How did it occured?" with "Who is to blame?" This
error is common when the writer attempts to explain bad events, which are mostly
contemporary events. David Hackett gives an example from American history and says
that:
“The most glaring example in American historiography is the attempt to explain
the course of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The question of cause is no sooner
raised than it is transformed from "What caused it?" to "Who is to blame?"…but nearly
all of them seek to impose responsibility upon some human agent... But it is quite
impossible to locate any individuals who were responsible in both a moral and a causal
sense for what happened in this painful chapter of our past. The cause of the failure of
Reconstruction race policy must surely be sought in general phenomena for which no free
and responsible human agent can b e held t o blame…To argue the proposition "Was
Andrew Johnson to blame, or Thaddeus Stevens?" is to manifest an empirical limitation
and perhaps a moral blindness as well. It is also logically indefensible.”31
Most of causal explanations are either by asking causal question and seeking
another kind of causal answer, or it consists in a stubborn determination to locate the
causes. Authors do these kinds of errors to hide their causal models from readers
because of their tendencies. There are many other errors (Concerning analogy,
31
of America: Harper and Row Publishers, 1970), 31.

22
composition, inquiry) that any author may commit when writing about history or any
accounts of everyday life.

23
Chapter Two: Reading Ayi Kwei Amah

24
Introduction
New historicism allows critics to compare between non-literary text and literary
text to understand why this latter was created. Therefore, this chapter will glance at the
political development in Ghana between the mid of 60s and 70s and then will extract the
same issue from The Healers which was published in 1979 to understand Armah’s
vision and for what reason he uses history. To do so I have relied much on the book
“Ghana” by Rachel Naylor where I took out some facts about the political development
to understand the political issues at that time; and then I have studied the novel.
2.1.Political Issues After the Independence of Ghana and
during the 70s: From Dream to Despair
2.1.1. The Non Literary Text:
2.1.1.1.Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah
The wave of independence across Africa spread over the years of 1960s. After the
collapse of the colonial empires, new African states had to deal with the difficult task of
reconstruction, the elimination of extreme forms of poverty, privation and hunger.
People anticipated an idealistic world where all the oppression and injustice experienced
during colonization would end and all of them would enjoy a good life. The leaders
assisted to feed this hope with their speeches, for example Kwame Nkrumah's speech at
Ghana independence on 6th March 1957 said:

25
And as I pointed out... I made it quite clear that from now on – today – we must change
our attitudes, our minds; we must realize that from now on, we are no more a colonial but
a free and independent people…Seeing you in this… it doesn't matter how far my eye
goes, I can see that you are here in your millions and my last warning to you is that you
are to stand firm behind us so that we can prove to the world that when the African is
given a chance he can show the world that he is somebody! 32
Would the independence be the answer? Unrest, decline, and militarism, seemed
to dominate most African countries. After decolonization of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah,
who headed the Convention Peoples’ Party, took the control of the state. He wanted to
build an industrialized, modern Ghana like the European country. However, his plans
did not happen in the way that they were arranged because there was a lack of trained
management and technical personnel to run the new state enterprises. As a result,
mismanagement and corruption in state-owned enterprises and even between the
members of his party became endemic33
. Officers, who were dissatisfied with the
economic and political situation, mounted a coup in 1966. At the time, Nkrumah was
out the country and he never returned to Ghana34
.
Kwame Nkrumah had been negatively criticized by Ayi Kwei Armah in his first
novel. Duglas Killam considers Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is, after
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, likely to be the best-known and most read and
discussed in African. It was published in 1968. Its central theme is about the grand
32
Kwame Nkrumah, "Ghana Is Free Forever", BBC News. 22 Mar.2017.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/focusonafrica/news/story/2007/02/070129_ghana50_independence
_speech.shtml
33
Rachel Naylor, Ghana (Accra: Oxfam GB, 2000), 19.
34
Ibid., 20.

26
corruption, military dictatorship, country's maladjustment under the reign of Nkrumah
and the military government that takes power by force35
.
2.1.1.2.Ghana after Kwame Nkrumah
After Nkrumah, Ghanaian political issues did not stop. The country became under
a military rule, led by the National Liberation Council for three years. Its policies were
considerably the same as the previous one. In 1969, Ghana held democratic elections,
the progress party headed by Kofi Busia. The continued economic problems led to a
second coup in 1972, mounted under Lieutenant Colonel Acheampong. Ghana was the
Supreme Military Council in 1975. The continuation of problems led some people
accusing government of being corrupt. The Supreme Military Council began taking
severe actions to restrict the activities of those people. There was a military crackdown
on student protesters; universities and independent newspapers that oppose the regime
were closed; and journalists had been detained36
. People called for civilian rule. In 1979,
the ban on political parties was lifted. In the same year Lieutenant J.J Rawlings staged a
coup.
Douglas Killam says that Ayi Kwei Armah starts analyzing the conditions of
Ghana, also the other postcolonial, post independence African countries, by asking the
question "How long will Africa be cursed with its leaders?"37
. Therefore, Armah turns
to history of Ghana in three novels that follow: The Healers, Two Thousand Seasons,
and Osiris Rising: A Novel of Africa, Past, Present and Future. Douglas also claims that
35
Duglas Killam, Literatue of Africa (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004), 47.
36
Rachel Naylor, Ghana (Accra: Oxfam GB, 2000), 21
37

27
these latter three novels tell stories of African (Ghanaian) societies in the pre-colonial
and early colonial period, offer observation on what was the nature of the social
arrangements of the countries depicted, remarking in particular what was good in them
that could be retained, and what conditions shaped them as the European quest for
wealth and power supplanted traditional values38
.
It seems that Ghana after independence and during 70s had not lived in political
stability which hurt the economic development. Regrettably, this hope of idealistic
world has been frustrated and hence the Ghanians overwhelmed by a deep sense of
betrayal on the part of the led. As result many voices were raised to enhance the
situation not only for Ghana but for all the African countries.
2.2 A Brief Introductionto Ayi Kwei Armah
2.2.1 Ayi Kwei Armah as a Writer and Intellectual
In literary works, many African novelists try to understand the reasons of
underdevelopment in Africa. Many of them have used history as their mean and support
to convince their readerships to change their life conditions. For instance, novelists from
west of Africa such as Chinua Achebe, in his novel Arrow of God, which was published
in 1964 uses history as tragedy because Nigerians according to him were needed to
reconstruct culture after it was destroyed by the colonizer39
. Also, Ayi Kwei Armah in
his novel The Healers published in 1979 uses history as proof to show that the
corruption of the political elites has existed in the past and people should not rely on
them to enhance their life.
38
39
Lokangaka Losambe, An Introduction to the African Prose Narrative (South Africa: African World
Press, 2004), 74.

28
Therefore, amidst violence, conflict, and confusion, African literature has come to
light out of a long tradition of resistance and protest. As new historicism argues, the
reader and the author are affected by their society’s social structure. In addition, Steven
Jones, discuses the concept of hegemony and explains the role of intellectuals in
society, as formulated by Antonio Gramsci, argues that in each period of history,
various intellectuals have formed ideas that have shaped specific society; every class
makes one or more groups of intellectuals. Therefore, if the working class wants to
succeed in becoming hegemonic, it must also create its own intellectuals to develop a
new ideology40
.
Ayi Kwei Armah is a Ghanaian novelist and cultural activist. In 1963, he got a
Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies from Harvard University. Armah then worked
briefly as a translator in Algeria. When he returned to Ghana in 1964, he became a
scriptwriter for Ghana Television41
. In 1957, Ghana was the first colony that gained
independence and was ruled by Kwame Nkrumah. In 1966a coup d'état overthrew his
government. This change influenced Armah's views about corruption in politics and he
criticized Nkrumah's administration in his novel The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born
(1968). In addition, all his novels including: Fragment (1969), Why Are We So Bless?
(1972), Two Thousand Seasons (1973) and The Healers (1979) are sharing the theme of
African leadership’s betrayal of the African Continent42
.
2.2.2 Critical Perspective on Ayi Kwei Armah
To understand Ayi Kwei Armah’s works one has to look at Fanon’s theories. In
his book “The Wretched of the Earth”, Frantz Fanon predicted the present problems of
40
Steven Jones, Antonio Gramsci (Canada:Routledge, 2006), 86.
41
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, "Ayi Kwei Armah:
Ghanaian Writer," April 25,2016 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ayi-Kwei-Armah
42
"Armah, Ayi Kwei 1939–," High Beam Research - Newspaper Archives and Journal Articles, Mrch
13,2017 https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3079400016.html

29
Africa in the chapter called, the pitfalls of national consciousness, accusing only the
leaders. He contends that the ideological failure of the new elites leads to the failure to
support national unity and consequently, African unity, which is essential to free Africa
from neo-colonialism. He refers to the limitation of nationalist sentiment: while such
sentiment is an integral stage in the struggle for independence from colonial rule; it
proves to be an empty shell43
. Armah agrees with Fanon on the point of the leaders
having let Africa down.
True, I used to see a lot of hope. I saw men tear down the veils behind which the truth had
been hidden. But then the same men, when they have power in their hands at last, began
to find the veils useful. They made many more. Life has not changed. Only some people
have been growing, becoming different, that is all. After a youth spent fighting the white
man, why should not the president discover as he grows older that his real desire has been
to be like the white governor himself, to live above all the blackness in the big old slave
castle?44
Armah, like many other Africans, his sensitivities and concerns were formed by
internal conflicts of his country and by the continuing of the foreign political and
especially, economic pressures. He has written novels that place characters in a
historical context in order to show the conditions in which people live in modern Ghana.
A number of critics of African literature observed Armah on various issues; his
early works, particularly his first three novels, The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born,
Fragments, and Why Are We So Bless? have been describes for being derived from
43
Fanon Frantz, Translated by Constance Frarrigton, The Wretched of the Land (New York: Grove
Weidefeld, 1963), 147.
44
Armah, AyiKwei, The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born! (London: Heinemann Educational
Books, 1988 ), 92.

30
foreign literary sources; because Armah lived some period in the United States, some
reviewers doubted that he was interested in traditional African culture. Chinua Achebe,
have accused Armah of being un-African in harmony with European writing about
Africa than with real African literature. Others have complained of Armah's change in
tone in his later works for example ‘The Healers’ of being too idealistic to inspire real
change. However, many critics have described Ayi Kwei Armah as one of the greatest
prose writers to come from Africa because his works has inspired much discussion
about Africa's future and hold an important position in contemporary African
literature45
.
2.3. Reading Ayi Kwei Armah’s “The Healers”
2.3.1 . The Corrupt Leaders
Ayi Kwei Armah introduces The Healers as a historical novel in the style of an
oral narrative set in the 19th
century in Ashanti Empire when it was defeated by the
Europeans. He says that it is a story of historical encounter between two societies one
African and one European. It is set at the time following the slave trade, when
Europeans shifted their aim from slavery to the raw materials, because industrial
machines made slavery not profitable, they did so with the help of the Africans
themselves. Therefore, the central theme of the novel is disunity as disease and
unification as healing46
.
In The Healers, Damfo teaches Densu that there are two forces: unity and
division. The first creates; the second destroys. Armah sees the great ill of Africa are the
45
" Armah, Ayi Kwei 1939–," High Beam Research - Newspaper Archives and Journal Articles, Mrch
13,2017 https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3079400016.html
46
Per Ankh Publishers, “The Healers, a novel by Ayi Kwei Armah,” YouTube video, 13:59. Posted
[October 2016]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha8VnPzqXzg

31
royal families, and they are the major cause of the division among the Akan. Therefore,
most of his discourses (language) are related to the corruption of the ruling class.
Among our people, royalty is part of the disease. Whoever serves royalty serves the
disease not the cure. He works to divide our people, not to unite us … to the royals the
healing of the black people would be a disaster, since kings and chiefs suck their power
from the divisions between our people.47
The story started just before the conquest of the white men. Armah wants to show
that the leaders' passion for power has existed in Africa centuries ago and not mainly a
disease caused by colonizers. Through the character, Ababio, he discloses that the
origins of corruption that recently covers Ghana were planted during the pre-colonial
period. The prime concern of Ababio is how to gain power, while the other kings are
obsessed with how to keep power at all costs, and not how to serve people under them.
He wants to prove that each leader and the following ones would not do anything new;
they are all the same just new faces of the same old political system. They also have
made people trusting them using old tricks inherited in the history of African.
At the beginning of the story, during the games, Ababio attempts to persuade
Densu, to participate in his intrigue to take the power from Prince Appia the legitimate
successor. To do his plan, Ababio enlists the assistance of Esuman, an apostate healer,
who is equally power hungry. Ababio uses craftiness, threats where necessary and even
murders, as in the case of Prince Appia and the attempted murder of Densu, to get what
he wants. Esuman is responsible for obfuscation, the use of spiritual incantations that
ordinary people are not supposed to understand. Ababio belongs to a slave family and
47
Armah Ayi Kwei, The Healers (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1979), 269. Subsequent
page references are to this edition.

32
all he has learnt about power, has learnt from the masters. Clarifying his deeds to
Densu, Ababio links his grandfather’s dream and how he rose to power from being just
a slave at Kumase. Ababio says:
Habits leaned at the larger court at Kumase stood my grandfather in good stead here. He
knew how to talk, and he did not make the mistake of wasting his eloquence in honest
talk. He used his tongue profitably, only for flattering the powerful. His loyalty was
unquestioning; so it became unquestionable…Do I still need to tell you I know everything
there is to know about roads to power? The knowledge is in my spirit my grandfather
passed down mixed with the blood of our mothers. I can show you the quickest roads to
power; blind loyalty to those who already have the greatest power. (300)
Armah makes his character belonging to a slave family, to exemplify the most
offensive and deprived society. Ababio's greed for, and envy of power is similar to that
of blacks, especially the elite, under colonial rule. They want very much to have what
the white have and wait for a day that they will supersede them, and they use whatever
cost them to achieve their purposes. Ababio uses the whites to aid him to gain power
and later prides himself,
This is a new day in the land. The whites are in control. They recognize me,
Ababio, as king of Esuano. Whatever goes against me will have to take on the whites.
They protect me. They look after me. Whatever I want from them, can ask for it, and I
will get it. (299)
This indicates that Ababio is actually not the ruler as others would believe but the
real rulers are the whites at Cape Coast. The kings at Cape Coast also trade their people
for money and indirectly pass their authority to the whites. For instance, when the

33
whites propose to the kings that they would get ten pounds for one thousand fighting
men, one of the kings, arguing in favour, says:
Not so much” said the one in red coat, “if you consider what we are told to do” “But the
ten pounds are for our own use only. The whites will give food to thefighters and pay
them everything” this was the big, quiet King AmfoOtu theone from Abora. “And who
knows, if all the food and pay and ammunition areto be distributed by us, we may find
ways to end up with considerably morethan these ten pounds. (211)
Therefore, at the time the kings are engaged in increasing their wealth; their
people perish in the war. The kings cooperate with the whites instead of uniting with the
Asante army to expel the whites from their land. Armah wants to show that the Pan-
African dream is dead as there is no unity among the Africans. In other words, he argues
that for centuries African leaders have feigned to fulfill all the needs of their own
people, but in reality, they fulfill their own need using their population, so are the new
leaders. For instance, in the story there are many human sacrifices, first to make the
Asante army able to go and attack its enemies, to obtain more slaves and hence raise the
pride of the Asante army, secondly to protect Kumase from General Wolsely’s attack.
At face value, this might seem like the Asantehene endeavor to save the safety of
Kumase and provide security for his people. Actually they leave Kumasi and send an
order to stop fighting and let the whites walk all over Kumasi uninhibited. The royalties
simply want to keep their power as reported by Oson:
The King asked if she believed your way was not the only way to stop the whites from
reaching Kumase. Her answer was yes. But then she asked the king if he would rather be
king of a violated kingdom or be nothing in a virgin nation. ‘Yes she asked him that. She

34
said if Asante followed Asamoa Nkwanta’s plan and resisted the whites there would be
nothing to stop AsamoaNkwanta from becoming king of the inviolate nation. She said the
wisdom of a king lay in knowing at all times what to do in order to remain king. If what
should be done now was to yield a bit to the whites, better that than to lose all power to an
upstart general. (291)
From this passage it can be deduced that Armah tries to convince his audiences
that this is their modern situation that leaders refuse to step out of power even when
they know that they have dismally failed as leaders (like what had happened in 1974,
the military crackdown). He also points out to the leaders who give up a little power to
the whites, benefit financially and are treated better than the rest of their people.
Similarly, Ababio believes that the whites system of rules is the civilized one. In
his attempt to kill Densu, he emphasizes that:
Now we’ll have to arrange another trial. A civilized trial. The whites keep telling us we
used to do the things like sleep walkers in the past. Now they say they’ve opened our
eyes. We’re civilized. No more ritual trials with the drug of death. This time we’ll have a
proper court. A whole white man will come from the Cape Coast to see to it that
everything is done properly, in the new, civilized way. Then you’ll hang Densu. (301)
However, on the day of the trial the whites turn against Ababio despite his earlier
declaration that the whites will save him. Here Armah wants to teach something about
unification, according to him the real power lies in working with the compatriots,
because the whites, once they get what they want, they can easily change their subject.
Therefore, no African would benefit from his land.

35
2.3.2 Ayi Kwei Armah’s Way to Achieve Unity
Moreover, Ababio is represented as a negative leader. In contrast, Asamoa Nkwata is
represented as a positive leader. He abandons his job as a general after the murder of his
nephew. The Asante army begins to disintegrate because none of the Captains can
command it. The well-being of the army and consequently of Asante (the army is the
guardian of the Asante) rests on Asamoa Nkwanta’s shoulders. Armah wants to show
that not all leaders are bad there are others who are good. However, the failure of these
leaders is because of their lack of ideas and creativity. External influences also affect
the leader’s decisions. For instance, all the healers want to put all of their might behind
supporting General Asamoa Nkwanta, as the savior who would solve all of the issues
that they had been accumulating for decades. Except Damfo who is the only one who
understand that that kind of swift solution would not suffice especially from someone
who is not a healer; furthermore, he has an occupation that creates a large portion of the
problems that the healers are trying to solve.
So I have looked steadily at Asamoa Nkwanta while he's been under our care. I have
listened carefully to him, and I know a little of the nature of his soul. Asamoa Nkwanta is
a good man. He is also a valuable man, one of those highly skilled in the pursuit of a
vocation. But all his life, all his goodness has been spent in the service of Asante royalty.
Among our people, royalty is part of the disease. Whoever serves royalty serves the
disease, not the cure. He works to divide our people, not to unite us, no matter what he
hopes personally to do. (269)
The passage shows that the concept of a savior does not work at all, people need
to work together. Armah sees that it is the work of community to solve the problems of
Ghana not relying on an individual; this was mentioned through Damfo:

36
I don't believe so," Damfo said, "and I will not allow myself even to wish so. Healing is
work, not gambling. It is the work of inspiration, not manipulation. If we the healers are
to do the work of helping to bring our people together again, we need to know such work
is the work of a community. It cannot be done by any individual. It should not depend on
any single person, however heroic he may be. And it can't depend on people who don't
understand the healing vocation - no matter how good such people may be as individuals.
(269-270)
The political problems that Ghana had gone through after independence and
during 70s which disrupt its social and economic development, made Armah got enough
from their government. However, Armah believes that there is still hope that Ghana
could be healed. For instance, Araba Jesiwa is a mother who lost her son because of
hungry power; as result, she was almost dead but she was recovered by the healers who
are against royalty. That is Ghana where people are lost and suffering from their elites
who have not done anything good to save them.
In addition, Armah’s idealistic world is the world without kings and so without
slaves. Discussing this idealistic world between Damfo and the general Asamoa
Nkwanta
"Do you know the reason for that death?"
"It's the custom"
"Have you examined the custom that can result in so much murder?"
AsamoaNkwanta's face gathered itself up into a puzzled mask of lines and shadows.
His eyes narrowed, almost shut. Here was a man trying to master an idea still new to his
ways of thought.

37
"Would you change the custom if you had the power?"
"No!" This was also vehement.
"Would your nephew have died if there hadn't been any such custom?"
…Then AsamoaNkwanta laughed, even in his sorrow "A world without slaves! You
might as well wish for a world without kings"
"Yes, no slaves, no kings"
"No slaves, no kings" AsamoaNkwanta repeated to himself, incredulously. "What
would there be then?"
"People. Human beings who respect each other." (175)
From this passage, Armah believes that if people accept to be ruled by other is
like being accepting the old custom of kings having slaves. He combines between the
past and present into one image to comment on modern Ghanaians’ life where there are
leaders and people. He wishes for a world where there is only human beings without
any social order. Steven J.Salm and ToyniFalola write that Armah’s view that Ghana
and Africa as cursed by its leaders, come from his experiences of living, writing, and
teaching in North America, Europe, and all over Africa48
.
During the colonization and after independence, new Africans believe that one of
the most important things in self-fashioning is to live freely from the fear of oppression.
By creating Densu, Armah fashions an identity for himself. Densu is an individual who
has spent his life in society but is separated from it. He has sought out to build his
identity for his virtues in developing selfhood and for its restorative qualities. Armah’s
sentiments are expressed through Densu. He has lived and worked in the different
cultural areas in Africa. Having testified the moral disintegration of his society, he
prefers to write to his society because he cannot fight the system alone.
48
Steven J. Salm ToyniFalola, Culture and Customs of Ghana (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Press, 2002), 68.

38
However, having a leader does not prevent a country to develop. There are many
countries that have leaders and they are well-developed. But because of the political
tension in Ghana, he thought that the system of leadership should be stopped. Hence,
Armah’s vision of healing is too idealistic to inspire real change. Therefore, because
writers are the output of a particular culture and a particular time, the kind of theory
they use is also restricted by the historical moment and place that they are living in, as
new historicism argues49
. As result, the perspective of the theory would be restricted
too.
2.4. The Historical Bias in “The Healers”
Some historical writers when they write specific facts about the past, they use
their own creative imagination to interpret those facts and to show the relations between
them. C. Behan McCullagh discusses the literary and subjective sources of historical
interpretation. He suggests that historical descriptions, interpretations, and explanations
could be biased. He claims that historians' accounts of the past reflect their personal
interests and vision of past events.50
Bias is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact it can be
very useful as it lets us find out about what people believed or thought about a particular
subject as it has shown in the previous section. Ayi Kwei Armah is one of those writers.
The story of The healers set in 1873-74 in part of Africa, nowadays Ghana. The
name Ghana did not exist as a name of a place until March 1957. Armah mentions the
name Ghana:
49
Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (London: The University
of Chicago, 2000), 2.
50
C. Behan McCullagh, Bias in Historical Description, Interpretation, and Explanation.( Australia:
Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan University, 2011), P 2 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2677997

39
Did you remember to tell your listeners of what time, what age you rushed so fast to
speak? Or did you leave the listeners floundering in endless time, abandoned to suppose
your story belonged to any confusing age? Is it a story of yesterday, or is it of last year? Is
it from the time of the poet Nyankoman Dua, seven centuries ago? Or did it take place ten
centuries ago, when Ghana was not just a memory, and the eloquent ones before you still
sang praises to the spirit holding our people together?...(2)
When Armah is writing about the past, he is actually remembering his present
day. He goes back to the past to examine contemporary African political antagonism.
Armah's theme is once again cultural disintegration. The root source is perceived as
tribal disunity, a disease that plagued African societies before the coming of the
Europeans. Nevertheless, the focus is upon the Asante Empire, it is just an emblematic
of what is happening in Ghanaian society in particular and Africa in general.Its
encounter with the white reduplicates the age-old question of power and leadership.
Because Armah strongly wants to convince his compatriots of their current problems, he
mentions Ghana although the name was not existed at that time.
Moreover, Aramah’s first aim is to find the reasons behind the disunity of the
Africans. He began by narrating a story of how the division started. He writes that:
These people who remembered could talk of ancestors who had come travelling great
distances, leading a people in pain. At Esuano, as at other places along the route, some
had found clear water of life, flowing by good land. So they had taken root. In gratitude

40
and in hope, they had enacted each chosen year the ceremonial games, the rituals of
remembrance… These had been festivals made for keeping a people together . ( 2)
From this passage, Armah tells how people shaped a unity and they made a
traditional game for keeping themselves together. Then this game lost its meaning by
time because there were divisions among those wandering people. As result people lost
their national spirits; armah writes:
“The truth was plain: among the wandering people some had chosen homes deeper in
the heart of the land, and settled in the forests there. This was division. Some had pushed
their way eastward till they came to a great fertile river and settled along its banks. This
was a division. Some had just moved south and south, till the see told them they could
move no farther, and they had settled there along the shore lands. This too was a
division… ” (Armah, 3)
In this passage it is stated that people had moved because they were looking for
better life conditions. And each group found a place that fits their needs. They had to do
that. But Armah mentions this story because he considers it as the root cause of disunity
which was later followed by the defeat of the Ashanti Empire by the whites. Armah
mentions in the novel that the division happened nearly 10 centuries when Ghanaians
were united and before the invasion. There might be different other causes that led
Africans to be defeated by the Europeans. He selects some truths (the division and the
lost meaning of the traditional game) because they support his idea about the disunity
between the Africans, the Africans themselves and the leaders are the only responsible,
and ignored other possible causes that might be more convincing. As a test of the

41
plausibility (chapter one P 2) of his novel, his thought that division causes invasion was
kind of error called the fallacy of “pot hoc, propter hoc”. The cause and the result are
totally different.
In addition, Armah confused between what is ethics and agency. He blames the
kings for having slaves. He believes that if there were not kings, slaves would not have
existed. Wayne Rudolph Davidson agreeing with John Hope Franklin exposes the
ancient institution of slavery in Africa as follows: “Slavery was an important feature of
African social and economic life… Under tribal law, slaves were usually regarded as the
property of the chief of the tribe or the head of the family...”51
However, it is contemporary that the kings are no longer accepted, people have
the right to choose their leaders. This leads Armah to misuse the past because he
believes the only cause of the disease of the African society are the ruling class. But we
can’t judge people of the past for having such tradition. These biases confirm that
Armah uses history to support his vision, and they show that history is the author’s
creation.
51
Wayne Rudolph Davidson When Clans Collide: The Germination of Adam's Family Tree through
Surname, Life Experience, and DNA (USA: Abbott Press, 2013), 65.

42
Chapter Three: Reading Manu Herbstein

43
Introduction
It becomes predictable that almost all literary texts as insofar deal with slavery, it
would tell a story of the violence of colonialism, patriarchy, female sexuality or
gendered reproduction, economic production, the site of imperial contest, and racial
difference, as it is about black people’s resistance and struggle for liberty. They tell
different kinds of stories in different places in Africa, America, and Europe. This
chapter will compare what happened in Ghana in the late of twentieth century with what
makes Manu Herbstein to write his historical novel Ama: a Story of the Atlantic Slave
Trade which was published at the very beginning of the twenty-first century. In this
study I have relied much on the E-reads.com because Herbstein collects all his resources
into this website.
3.1. A Brief Introductionto Manu Herbstein
3.1.1. Manu Herbestein’s Life
Manu Herbstein is a South African writer. He grew up in apartheid South Africa.
He studied at the University of Cape Town, left South Africa in 1959 and did not return
to it until 1993. He is a civil and structural engineer by profession. He worked in
England, Nigeria, Ghana, India, Ghana again, Zambia and Scotland. He first came to
Ghana in 1961. During the 60s, he was in and out of country but he has been living
there permanently since 197052
. Manu Herbstein’s Ama: a Story of the Atlantic Slave
Trade won Commonwealth Writers Prize 2002 and nominated for the 2003
52
Richard Curtis, “The Author”, http://www.ama.africatoday.com/author.htm

44
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award53
. The novel describes the double-fold
plight of being a slave and a female at the same time. He has written up today four
novels including Akosua and Osman 2012; Ramseyer's Ghost 2013; and The Boy Who
Spat in Sargrenti's Eye 2014.
3.1.2. The Critical Pespective on Ama: a Strory of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Herbstein claims that for a long time he had craved to do some creative writing.
He felt that having lived most of his adult life in Ghana, both as an insider and outsider,
and so seeing Ghanaian society both from the inside and from the outside, he thought he
should have to tell a story. He was still searching for a theme when, in the early 1990s,
there was news of the events in the North which came to be known as the Guinea Fowl
War 54
.
Many critics’ attention towards Herbstein was because at the age of 60 he
published a novel on the Internet. The novel, Ama, a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade,
won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best First Book. This is the first time in
15 years that the prize has gone to an African writer55
. Herbstein has compiled a
database of potential readers and set up a website where he took the initiative to
published his story.The novel has been critically praised, Akosua Perbi says that: “the
story is very well told. As an historian involved in slavery as my specialty, I could
identify with so many things in the book. I can see how he researched the historical
53
54
55

45
accounts.”56
And some critics such as Chantal-Nina Kouoh believes that the novel
could be a reference book at schools and universities57
.
Many writers have endeavored to depict the horror and humiliation of slavery
with divergent degrees of success. And some of these writers have been, white as Manu
Herbestein. Because the whites are known for their brutality against the blacks;
therefore, he tries to tell a story from the point of view of a black and so he says that:
I was aware while writing this book that I had to be very careful about cultural baggage. I
didn’t want to experience the criticism of people asking, “Who the hell are you, Manu
Herbstein, a white South African, coming to lecture us about the slave trade”? I’m told
that that is a reaction that can come very easily, particularly on the other side of the
Atlantic. So I exercised care in trying to tell the story from the point of view of a central
character who was right down there at the bottom of the heap.58
Herbstein wants to make a story that when someone reads it, he would believe that
the story is told from a real slave. The tidiness of Herbstein’s writing, the lucidity of his
language, his selection of the words, the historical facts, the descriptions of the customs
and daily life in the villages and towns; all of those elements make a masterpiece of his
version of the story of the slave trade. With Ama, the reader is plunged into history,
romance, culture, wisdom; all in one.
56
Kwadzo Senanu and other, “Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” An edited transcription of
two one-hour editions of Radio Univers’s Read-A-Book-A-Week programme. May 21 and 28, 2003.
57
Richard Curtis, “Reactions to Ama”, http://www.ama.africatoday.com/author.htm "
58
Kwadzo Senanu and other, “Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” An edited transcription of
two one-hour editions of Radio Univers’s Read-A-Book-A-Week programme. May 21 and 28, 2003.

46
3.2. Conflict and Violence in Ghana in the Late of the Twentieth
Century
3.2.1. The Tribal Conflict in 1994 that Leads Manu Herbestein to Write His Novel
Manu Herbstein declares that what leads him to write the novel Ama: a Story of
the Atlantic Slave Trade is what did happen in Ghana, the conflict between two ethnic
groups: Konkomba and Dagomba59
. The Northern part of Ghana's society is divided
into traditional hierarchical and ethnic groups. On 2 February, 1994 there was afighting
in the North near the border with Togo broke out between Konkomba and Dagomba
ethnic groups.60
The 1994-1995 civil war is usually reputed to have started on January
31, 1994, after Konkomba and Nanumba disagreed about the price of a guinea fowl at a
market in Nakpayili near Bimbilla. The war is therefore also known as the "Guinea
Fowl War"61
. However, Herbstein says that he has looked for the origin of the strife in
northern Ghana. He was informed that the roots of the violence between Konkomba and
Dagomba date back to the past history62
.
Emmy Toonen claims that the prime points of struggle between Konkomba and
Dagomba lies in disputes over land rights and political representation. Land rights are
ultimately empowered to the greatest chief on behalf of the ethnic group. Members of
other ethnic groups, who live on the land of a chief, are expected to live by his or her
rules and to show respect or allegiance, sometimes in the form of gifts. As Allan
W.Cardinall writes:
59
60
"KONKOMBA HISTORY, CULTURE, RELIGION, ECONOMY." Ama, A Story of the Atlantic
Slave Trade. E.reads, http://www.ama.africatoday.com/konkomba.htm
61
Rachel Naylor, Ghana (Accra: Oxfam GB, 2000), 75.
62

47
At some time, probably towards the middle of the eighteenth century, the Ashanti power
was at its zenith…the king of Ashanti, Osei Opoku, is named as the conqueror of
Dagomba…that the Dagomba capital Yendi, and other large towns of the country, pay as
an annual tribute five hundred slaves, two hundred cows, four hundred sheep and cloths,
and that smaller towns are taxed in proportion. The Grunshi, Busansi, Konkomba,
Tchokossi, and other independent tribes were raided regularly to procure the necessary
number of slaves, and when hard put to it the Na of Dagomba asked his relatives of Mossi
and Mamprussi to help him in his payment63
.
Dagomba used to seize people from Konkomba to pay its tribute to Ashanti. This
event was the starting point of Herbstein’s story. In his novel there is a young girl from
Konkomba who was kidnapped by three men from Dagomba to join many other
kidnapped people from other independent tribes. The girl and the others are first
considering as a tribute that would be paid to Ashanti and later they would be used in
the Atlantic slave trade.
3.2.2. Violence against Women
The history of the slave trade tells us that across section of people was enslaved:
young, old, boys, and girls. But Herbstein chooses a girl, a teenager about to marry to be
the main character. He says that: “I asked myself what it must have been like to be a
Konkomba girl, so captured. I read everything relevant which I could lay hands on in
Accra, much of it published before 1970. As I did so, I created Ama and she wrote the
63
Slave Trade. E.reads, http://www.ama.africatoday.com/konkomba.htm

48
book for me.”64
That is significant in these days when we are emphasizing the gender
issue.
There are many things to tell when talking about a female because women across
the world, regardless of income, age or education, are subject to physical, sexual,
psychological and economic violence. In Ghana, violence against women takes many
forms. Social norms and assigned roles for women is one of Ghana’s main issues. There
are social standards that women in Africa have to follow, depending on their culture and
religion. For instance, David Tait writes that in Konkomba culture, the infant girls are
engaged to young men in their early twenties who thereafter offer bride service and pay
bride corn to their parents-in-law, until the girl is of an age to marry. He states that
When girls reach the age, they do not go happily to their husbands because they do not
have the right to marry their lovers. All are reluctant to go and most of seek delay. In
the end they go by forced. In addition, Husbands are delighted to receive a new wife. A
woman may suffer when she first marries yet the system gives all the security and care
to her and her children that the culture can offer65
.
Manu Herbstein writes about this point in his novel, where Nandzi from her infant
was engaged with another man and she would not marry her lover Sipho. Morever,
many women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes. Whether it’s
domestic abuse, rape, or sexual trafficking, gender-based violence denies far too many
women the opportunity to live happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives. Manu also tackles
this point where Nandzi was raped by the Dagomba man.
64
65
Slave Trade, http://www.ama.africatoday.com/konkomba.htm

49
Living in Ghana, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, and India Manu Herbstein has
witnessed the violence against women in those countries which may leads him to
choose to write about a female. An example for in South Africa a speaker from the
organization called People Opposing Women Abuse says that:
There isn't a place where women are safe in our society. Think of the women who would
love to be here [at the march] but can't because they are dead, raped, strangled, beaten to
death by their husbands. There isn't an institution that can guarantee the safety of
women....We say violence against women is wrong. This is about human rights."66
It is clear that from what modern women have passed through from brutalities,
Manu Herbestein manages to imagine to what extent the past women had suffered as
being a female and slave at the same time. Therefore, Ama represents a modern woman
and a past woman both in one.
3.3.Reading Manu Herbstein’s “Ama:a Story of the Atlantic Slave
Trade”
3.3.1 The Background of the Novel
The story follows one character a Bekpokpam girl called Nandzi who was
captured by the Bedagbam slave hunters, as part of hundreds of slaves who had to be
sent to the King of the Asanti as payment for the annual tribute placed on them by the
latter after a defeat in a war. She was taken from her home village to Yendi and then to
66
"South Africa: march against violence against women". Source: Off Our Backs, Vol. 21, No. 6,
The Conference Issue: National Lesbian Conference(june 1991), p. 9. Published by: off our
backs, inc. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20833631

50
Kumase, the capital of the Asante Kingdom. In Kumase she was given as a gift to the
Asantehemaa (the Queenmother of the Asantes) where she worked as a servant girl and
she was given the name Ama. Unfortunately, after the death of the unhealthy king, the
young one who succeeded him, Osei Kwadwo, fell in love with her. To avoid shame to
the kingdom, she was sold to the slave traders along the coast to be shipped across the
ocean.
In addition, Herbstein shows us different kinds of characters some of them
participate in making Africa disunited, others who die struggling for their African
identity. Ama has met different people. Itsho and Tomba, are her husbands each of them
dies an unsung tragic hero in the struggle against slavery. She met and is companied in
each chapter by different women, especially Minjendo, Esi, Augusta, Nana Esi, Luiza,
Jacinta and the old woman Esperanca, Wono and Ayodele the women who helped her
through difficult times. There are other European enslavers and their various African
cooperators, especially Abdulai and the slave-raiding gang of the Bedagbam warriors;
Koranten Pete, King Osei Kwadwo and Kwame Pianin or King Osei Kwame and the
Asante ruling house. There is also the Governor of the slave fort Mijn Heer, who loves
her and would have given her back her freedom. In contrast there is Jensen who hated
her and threw her back into the dungeon, and also the priest Van Schalkwyk who
preached Christian love and pardon even as he ensured that the African captives accept
their enslavement. Also there is the Fanti Christian priest Philip Quaque who couldn't
decide whether he was African or English.
Therefore, Manu's story is more than the story of the Atlantic slave trade. It is also
about the internal slavery that existed among ethnic groups of the time because Ama
was first an internal slave in Ashanti (Africa) before she was sold to the Dutch (Europe)
and later was taken to Brazil (America). There were several sources of disunity among

51
blacks that worked against them, to this extent Manu is in league with Ayi Kwei Armah.
But Herbstein show this disunity in different way.
3.3.2. Disunity among Africans
The novel is an imaginative recreation of the history of the slave trade. The slave
trade was first started in Africa. There is a historical fact that the Dagomba warriors had
been vanquished in war and they became at some stage under the control of Asante. As
result they had to pay tribute to Ashanti by providing captured slaves. By using this fact
Herbstein wants to show that Africans themselves were as much responsible for the
slave trade as Europeans. Dagomba uses other tribes as its sources from where to incur
slaves. Konkomba was one of those tribes. Manu Herbstein chooses exactly Konkomba
because in modern Ghana the conflict between Dagomba and Konkomba still exists.
The story encompasses four broad locations of narrative setting: Africa where
Ama is a victim of inter-ethnic hostility and the greed of the African ruling
elite; Europe: where Ama is a tragic heroine in the European Slave Fort on the Gold
Coast; The Love of Liberty: where Ama is in the behoden of the ill-fated slave ship
across the turbulent Middle Passage; and America: where Ama's tribulations and
eventual triumph in the New World.
In the past, among Africans there was no sense of belonging to one nation. For
instance, Herbstein points out to the role of language. Most of the African slaves, who
had been kidnapped from different tribes, speak different languages and none of them
was capable of understanding the other, this diversity of tongues worked against them.

52
Thus, when Ama tried to free the slave ship from the captain67
, she with the slaves could
not understand each other, the escape was failed and some of them were punished so
severely; some died and were fed to the sharks and others lost parts of their bodies; Ama
for instance, lost an eye when one of the hooks at the end of the whip hooked onto it and
came out when it was forcefully pulled (p 273).
Herbstein also refers to the idea of favour-seeking: the slaves' fear of retributions
and death that is they look for freedom in the limit of not dying and they beg for their
lives even as slaves. They also sought promotion from their masters. Moreover,
ethnicity, the state of being separate tribes and of color also became a matter of
importance, which affected the unity of the people in their land and even in America.
For instance, the slaves who had been shipped earlier into the Americas, they
considered themselves better than the newcomers; alleging that they are more civilized
as it is mention in the passage "Don't call me brother, woman. I am not an unseasoned
guiney bird like you," he replied. "Now stand in line so that master can look at you
properly." (295)
Likewise, those who were born in captivity, consider themselves better than the
rest and were more inclined to serve the interest of their white side than their black side,
though they were never treated any better by the white men. Philip Quaque, the Cape
Coast Chaplain who had an English wife, is an example of Africans who are ashamed of
their origins and fully reject their African identity. He asked Ama to speak in English he
says:
Speak to me in English, child. I neither speak nor understand that heathenish tongue…
What is your name?…The white calls me Pamela…That does not sound like a Christian
67
Manu Herbstein, Ama : a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Ghana: Techmate Publishers Ltd, 2010),
264-266. Subsequent page references are to this edition.

53
name to me…But Pamela has the virtue at least to be an English name. To have an
English name is an honour and to have acquired a command of the language is a blessing,
especially for a pagan…(225-226)
Herbestein thinks that this diversity between the Africans that makes them
disunited. In modern Ghana those tribes of Konkomba and Dagomba still have this idea
of the past that each one feels more importance than the other. And Herbstein asserts
that in his novel that the whites know this about the Africans and they use it for their
benefits when Olukoya who is a slave from Yoruba says: “Our greatest enemy is not the
whites. It is our own disunity. They know that, of course, and they encourage it. Their Christian
religion is one of the weapons they use to divide us. That, by the way, was why I disturbed you
when you told me the book you were reading was their Bible.” (326) this shows that
Herbstein is blaming all the Africans for their disunity. And they still need to learn, to
read and to write to reach what had the white had achieved this can be deduced when
Olukoyo says: “Until we learn to read and write, we will never be able to defeat them
and regain our freedom. But tell me, where did you get the book?” (P 314) Therefore,
Herbstein sees that it is disunity that destroyed the African nations of the past and it is
still destroying the modern Africa. It also leads to their fighting with each other even in
the past when they made alliances with enemies which gave rise to slavery where
Africans traded their people.
3.3.3. The Women’s Issues in the Novel
What is it in the nature of men, she wondered, that makes them treat women with such
violence? Abdulai, Akwasi Anoma, Jensen. I am still young and yet already I have been

54
raped three times. Jensen was the worst. These sailors seem bent on the same course. I
shall have to watch out for myself. I hate all white men. (219)
Manu Herbstein shows us in his novel that modern women still suffered from
being females. If woman writes about women, she at least participates in their era and
witnesses what those women have lived from different kinds of female problems. She
also can understand them because they are in the same gender. In his novel, Manu
Herbstein tries to think as both woman which is a very difficult task for man to do.
Through his novel it can be understood what is like to be a woman in the era that this
story was written.
Ama is a story which is full of delicate moments, vision, and wisdom. Herbstein
manages to put himself in the shoes of his characters and describes their feelings and
actions as if he was the person itself. Being a male or female the way he narrates Ama’s
feelings, in her very intimate or terrible moments, can illustrate his sharp knowledge of
women, and of human psychology in general. For instance, the love sequences between
Ama and Itsho, Ama and Kwame, Ama and Mijn Heer etc… these are few examples
where he shows his understanding for females.
Another feature of this novel is its sensitivity towards the social position of
women. Through the discussion between De Bruyn and Williams about teaching Pamela
(the Germanic name of Ama), Herbstein shows two different male opinions on how to
treat and educate a woman. De Bruyn says:
Teaching Pamela to read has certainly changed her; but it has also been a rewarding
experience for me. Think of her as my Galatea and of me as her Pygmalion. You know
the Greek legend, of course? She has become a better companion to me, better intellectual
company, than any man in this castle. Your ideas on this issue are old fashioned,

55
Williams. The times are changing, even in England; or especially in England. I get the
sense of that from the novels you bring me. Think of Moll Flanders”…Williams’s reply
“…But books are not life, you know. They are not even a poor reflection of life. Books
are designed for the simple purpose of earning a profit for their authors. It is a dangerous
delusion to imagine that you can mine books for lessons on life. (175-176)
De Bruyn sees that women should be educated because this makes life better for
both genders; Williams thinks conversely, he says that “Curiosity is unbecoming in the
female sex. This girl's curiosity surely comes from your teaching her to read. An ability
to read is prejudicial in any woman, in a slave doubly and triply so. It opens them to
ideas unsuited to their station in life.” (176). Both of them were engrossed in their
discussion and forgetting the female person, Ama, that was with them. Her presence
was an enigma. Two males are deciding about a female, whereas the concerned is
standing unnoticeable. What can be deduced from this novel is that women at that time
were not able to decide about their lives.
Sexual abuse is present everywhere in the novel. Ama has been raped many times
by blacks and by whites. Her friend Esi and many other female slaves had been
crucially raped too. Rape is a desecration of not only one’s body, but also one’s soul.
post-rape trauma may not let her lives a normal life. Ama also lived in a society that
refused even a minimum acknowledgement of what women go through post-rape. They
consider it as normal. This can be shown when Mijn Heer tells her in sarcastic way:
you are too sensitive. We did not bring this custom from Amsterdam, you know: it was
the Fanti kings who taught it to us. This is the renowned Gold Coast hospitality of which

56
they are so proud... I haven’t told you before, the female slaves enjoy a night out … and a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to sleep in a real bed with mattress; and with a white man
too…some of them haven’t had men in months.(170)
Moreover, Herbstein points out that there are no differences between blacks and
whites: Abdulai, An Asantehene, Mijn Heer, Akwasi Anoma, Williams and Jesus
Vasconcellos are all the same, when it comes to sex. For instance, Ama says that
Williams (men in general) “He sees every female slave as just a vagina on two legs, she
thought bitterly, not for the first time.” (170) This also may indicate that men in modern
Africa still sexually abuse females but under the pretext that woman’s body want it too
even if they say no. However, Herbstein wants to show that it is woman’s choice and
men must not force her to do something she does not want to do. For example Ama’s
relationship with her lover Itsho, and with Osei Kwame (99) and even with her master
Mijn Heer (139); here she has the desire to do it, but with others she was forced and she
was looking for the way to escape.
In addition, Herbstein shows that African women have really suffered and have
not enjoyed their femininity, for example when De Bruyn had tried to fit Ama’s feet
into a pair of his late wife's shoes, but “the foot of a female slave who has walked many
weary miles on her own tough soles is very different from that of the idle lady wife of a
Director General of the Westindische Compagnie; and so, under her spreading skirt,
Ama's feet remained unshod.” (142).
However, in the novel not all males are bad. Manu Herbstein shows their positive
side when they fall in love with Ama. For instance, Damba was one of the three men

A Dissertation Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For A Master S Degree In Anglophone Literature And Civilization

A Dissertation Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For A Master S Degree In Anglophone Literature And Civilization

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A Dissertation Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For A Master S Degree In Anglophone Literature And Civilization