Prof Awoonor’s body arrives in Ghana today

• Posted on September 25, 2013September 25, 2013
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

The body of Professor Kofi Awoonor will arrive in the country on Wednesday evening from Kenya, where he was shot dead by militant group al-Shabab at the Westgate shopping centre.

The body will be accompanied by family members including his son, Afetsi Awoonor who also sustained gunshot wounds in the same terror attacks in Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Regional Executives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Volta Region say they will join with the rest of the family to receive the late Professor Awoonor’s body at the airport.

Simon Amegashie-Viglo, Regional Secretary of the party appealed to Members of Parliament (MPs), District Chief Executives (DCEs), and other faithful to join the late Professor’s family at the airport by 11 am on Wednesday.

He said it was important to receive the body of the late Professor in “solidarity”.

Biography

Professor Awoonor, born George Awoonor-Williams in 1935 in Ghana when it was educated at Achimota School and then proceeded to the University of Ghana, Legon.

He taught African literature at the University of Ghana. While at the University of Ghana he wrote his first poetry book, Rediscovery, published in 1964.

Like the rest of his work, Rediscovery is based on African oral poetry.

He managed the Ghana Film Corporation and founded the Ghana Play House. His early works were inspired by the singing and verse of his native Ewe people.

He then studied literature at the University of London, and while in England he wrote several radio plays for the BBC. He spent the early 1970s in the United States, studying and teaching at universities.

While in the USA he wrote This Earth, My Brother, and My Blood.

Professor Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 to be head of the English department at the University of Cape Coast.

Within months he was arrested for helping a Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings who had been accused of trying to overthrow the military regime at the time.

Professor Awoonor was imprisoned without trial and was later released.

The House by the Sea is about his time in jail. After imprisonment Awoonor became politically active and has written mostly nonfiction.

From 1990 to 1994 Awoonor was Ghana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where he headed the committee against apartheid.

He was also a former Chairman of the Council of State.

Literary works

Rediscovery and Other Poems (1964)

Night of My Blood (1971) – poems that explore Awoonor’s roots, and the impact of foreign rule in Africa

The House By the Sea (1978)

This Earth, My Brother (1971)

Comes the Voyager at Last (1992)

The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture, and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara (1975)

Ghana: A Political History from Pre-European to Modern Times
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