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Sub-Saharan Publishers - Amma Darko

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157 pages

English

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A new novel from a scion of the new generation of writers in Africa. She tells the story of women in Africa: here it is misery, pain, agony , dilemmas, frustrations. She floats the reader on a world of inverted reality, which yet becomes the norm. With creative imagination, confronting the social realities, she seeks out the world of peace and tranquillity. But not without verisimilitude. The extremes of moral turpitude beget horrid outcomes, leaving suspense rather than resolution. Amma Darko is one of the most significant contemporary Ghanaian literary writers. She is the author of three previous novels: Faceless (Sub-Saharan, 2003), The Housemaid (Heinemann, 1999) and Beyond the Horizon (Heinemann, 1995).

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Fiction

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Publié par	Sub-Saharan Publishers
Date de parution	15 octobre 2007
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789988647575
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

NOT WITHOUT
FLOWERS
NOT WITHOUT
FLOWERS
AMMA DARKO
This edition first published in Ghana, 2007 by SUB-SAHARAN PUBLISHERS P.O. BOX LG 358, LEGON, ACCRA, GHANA
AMMA DARKO 2007
ISBN 9988-647-13-1 978-9988-647-13-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Layout cover design by Anne Yayra Sakyi (Sub-Saharan Publishers)
Dedication
To Naa Dzama, Kwesi and Nana Kwame
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Epilogue
Acknowledgement
A LL AROUND THE world, wherever I have been invited to a writers gathering, be it a workshop, a conference or a seminar, I have always turned out to be the odd one out. Other participants always tend to be Professors; Associate Professors; Lecturers with PhDs and founders or members of reputable Non-Governmental Organizations. I am always (so far) the only writer with an eight to five job as a tax woman.
Added to caring for my two boisterous young boys and running a home, time and space to create is always very tight. So I wish to acknowledge the Hong Kong Baptist University who granted me the opportunity to be part of their first International Writers Workshop. My stay there provided me with the much needed space and concentration to finalize the structuring of this story.
The various faculty libraries of the University of Ghana are a rich source of valuable information. In addition to the regular textbooks, there are also the very many unpublished students theses. I am most grateful to Mrs. Charity Akotia (PhD), of the Psychology Department, for her tremendous help and guidance and for her entrusting me with some of her textbooks and other reading materials.
Mrs. Alice Allotey, the current President of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association, and a good friend of my very supportive sister, Cecilia, also paved the way for me to interact with some staff of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital. My grateful thanks to Mr. Mc-Cauley, the hospital secretary, Mr. Gadotor, the headmaster of the Special School, and Mrs. Henrietta Asare of the Hopsa Ward.
A big thanks also to Enid Owusu of the Noguchi Memorial Research Institute at Legon, and to my daughter Naa Dzama, of the KNUST Medical School for their assistance in some of my research work.
An acquaintance who saw me in and out of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital a couple of times, bombarded me with the offer of strong and powerful prayers by, in her words, a no-nonsense pastor, who knew how to deal with those bad spirits. I knew where she was coming from and couldn t blame her. She was very well aware of the Psychiatric Hospital s statistics, that the triggering factors of over ninety percent of the mentally sick female inmates were rooted in marital problems, and drew certain conclusions. I had a hard time trying to convince her that I was there researching for my book.
I want to acknowledge the continuous support and encouragement I have had from Kofi Anyidoho, Kari Dako, Kwesi Yankah and Ama Ata Aidoo. Special mention of Attukwei Okai, the Secretary General of the Pan African Writers Association, who always has an inspiring word for me must be made.
Finally, to my Ghanaian publishers, Sub-Saharan Pulishers, I say Thank you for your belief in me.
Foreword
O VER A DECADE Amma Darko appears to have seized the centre stage of women s world, plowing, tickling and reaching into inner recesses, to tell their story. A story of misery, pain, agony, dilemmas, frustrations. After Faceless, her last novel, where the grim realities of street side nightmares unfold in gory detail,Amma Darko floats her reader this time on a petal of Flowers, with a capital F.
But these are Flowers of pain. Amma s Flowers are not comforting, not soothing; they spark off deadly allergies, and set victims on a trail of dis-ease. They upset Ma, throw her into misery and shatter her dreams, her hopes, her world. It s a world full of inverted reality; yet this topsy-turvy world, becomes the norm in Not Without Flowers.
Close to a decade into the twenty-first century, the Ghanaian society Amma Darko mirrors is one of chaos and perverted values. It s a world replete with family crises, triggering nightmares, premonitions, mental disorders, suicide, prosmiscuity and ultimate infections: HIV/AIDS. But this turbulence is camouflaged under a veil of romance and cultural mores of which polygamy and superstition are ingloriously showcased. Underneath, however, is the messy reality of a pervasive social malaise, of adultery and promiscuity. The tragic outcomes are self evident in the pages: broken homes of childless couples, mothers driven into mental homes, and shattered fathers seeking answers in suicide.
But in the 21st century, Africa descends further into the abyss of barbarism. The plight of mental patients, largely women, agonizing in prayer camps throughout Africa is amply portrayed. The initials, WCS, inscribed at the entrance of the prayer camp, to which Ma is sent, signals horrors therein. It beckons patients to proceed and voluntarily submit to human rights violation. Since mental disease is portrayed as possession by evil spirits, patients are saved through torture. They are whipped, chained, thrown in filth and squalor, in the name of exorcising the devil. The WCS sign is prescription for the diagnosis:Whipping to Conquer Satan. Amma Darko s depiction of mental patients enduring the torture of healing, shows rare dexterity:
... No pillow for her head... about sixty, skeletal features, completely bald... Around each of her ankles was an iron ring hanged to a thick iron chain...
It was hooked through a hole in a huge blunt iron rod buried halfway into the concrete floor in the centre of the hut. There were other metal hooks in the hole from the other chained ankles. No wonder the wooden door was never locked. There was no need to.
The frail woman stank of stale urine... They tiptoed to the next figure, also bald and huddled on a mat with no pillow. The ankle was also chained... They moved onto the next figure and the next, all women, all old, and bald, all frail and chained, all haggard and stinking of stale urine.
For three rational and enlightened siblings, Randa, Cora, Kweku, to walk their mother into such shackles of horror, clearly signals the family s desperation. And why not? The stigma that mental disease attracts can be crippling, made worse if it points to a family history. That is precisely what derailed Cora s love affair with Afful: her mother s ailment and father s suicide, could not be accepted by Afful s parents. The feeling of depression nearly drove Cora herself on a path of emotional suicide.
But Cora s family is not alone in this misery. Idan s elder sister has a hunchback as her fourth child; her first child, a girl, was born with a severe mental handicap, which in-laws blamed on Idan s mother, a witch they say, who passed it on.
Thus, steeped in enigma, superstition, beliefs in sorcery, nemesis, destiny, the story unfolds. But mystery and suspense deepen with anonymous characters who dog the heels of principal actors. An eccentric, shadowy woman with blond Afro wig, and a huge pair of dark glasses, trails Idan, and moves in and out of his path. Who is she? An enigmatic man of God, Prophet Abednego, he calls himself, goes repeatedly after a radio presenter, Sylv Po, to help him reach a man who has been attacked in one leg, by the devil. Who is this Man of God and what is his motive? 5 th Wife, who gave an interview to a radio station about the mystery death of her polygamous husband, Pesewa, fears she is being trailed. Who is trailing her? And who is Teacher, Bible in hand always interviewing Ntifor, the man with two wives and a diseased leg? Is Teacher evangelizing? Conducting research? And from whence comes the bizarre prescription, that Ntifor s leg can be saved only if Junior wife is divorced? Haba! the prescription is hard to take, and Amma Darko releases the stress and suspense, when Penyin, 2nd wife grabs a pestle waiting to clobber Teacher.
And who is this silhouette who decides to sell his property to please his girlfriend? But suspense does not only subsist on masquerades and silhouettes. Amma Darko achieves the greatest effect through a painfully slow process of identity formation.
Yet it is contemporary social controversies and contradictions that Amma Darko stirs with the greatest success. A new found tool for the spinning of controversy is private radio - a mirror of current trends in Africa, the radio talk show is used as site for the revelation of secrets, unraveling of scandals, mystery deaths, suicides - indeed the epitome of the limits and the excesses of free speech. Thus the mystery death by suicide of wealthy, polygamous Pesewa turns out to be AIDS related. The 5 th Wife uses a free media to dissipate her bottled-up anxieties, and asserts her innocence. But this deepens the rift with her in-laws, who dog her heels and drive her into hiding. The question of who infected Pesewa with the virus, would naturally become a subject of public controversy, un