The beautyful and the damned
Ayi Kwei Armah's postcolony and the still-born humanisms of decolonization
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2174354 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C J Lee (0000-0001-5612-5927, Harvard University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1-17 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Interventions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-801X • E-ISSN: 1469-929X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1369801x.2024.2439600 |
| OpenAlex | W4406604707 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 18 |
This essay explores Ayi Kwei Armah’s first novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), as a commentary on the failure of the revolutionary humanisms introduced by leaders like Kwame Nkrumah during the early postcolonial period. Through a discussion of Frantz Fanon, his notion of wretchedness, and his impact on Armah’s thinking, the essay concludes that Armah ultimately resorts to a liberal humanism as a means of negotiating the “still-born” humanisms of decolonization
Art · Decolonization · Political science · African history and culture studies · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
The Ethics of Identity
The Invention of Africa
The Novels of Ayi Kwei Armah
The French Imperial Nation-State
Left universalism, Africacentric essays
Romancing the frontline
Ayi Kwei Armah's Radical Pan-African Itinerary
The Economic Question and the African Novel
Living with Nkrumahism
Provisional notes on the postcolony
The origins of totalitarianism
African Socialism
Masks and Marx
Inventions of Existence
Citizen and Subject
Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |