Kojo Laing

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Kojo Laing (actually: Bernard Ebenezer Laing ; born July 1, 1946 in Kumasi , Ghana ; † April 20, 2017 in Ghana) was a Ghanaian author of novels and poetry.

Life

Laing was born to George Ekyem Ferguson, an Anglican clergyman, and Darling (Agan) Laing. Kojo Laing was brought up as a Christian in a family home that is definitely part of the Ghanaian middle class.

Kojo Laing received his Masters in Political Science and History from the University of Glasgow , Scotland , UK in 1968 . During this time he was interested in existentialism and African literature. In 1969 Kojo Laing married a social worker of Scottish nationality. In the same year Kojo Laing went back to Ghana with his wife .

Kojo Laing originally began his work as a writer in the 1970s with his first poems. In 1975 Kojo Laing studied rural administration at the University of Birmingham. In 1978 Laing took on a job for the Ghanaian government in the capital Accra .

The marriage with his wife finally failed in 1984, after which his wife returned to her homeland. Since that year Kojo Laing has been running a private school in Accra that his mother founded in 1962.

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Kojo Laing is described as a postmodern writer. To date, his work includes three novels and a volume of poetry. His work was originally limited to poetry, so that his first novel, The Sun Seekers , was not published until 1986 . This work takes place in Ghana in the 1970s and deals, among other things, with the inability of the Ghanaian upper class to give the country prospects for the future. As a result, it focuses on the corruption rampant in the country and the burden of the dictatorship caused by Kutu Acheampong .

His second novel, Women of the Airplanes , was published in 1988 and in 1992 Major Gentl and the Achimota Wars came out. The latter takes place in 2020 and represents a struggle for survival between Major Gentl for Africa and Torro the Terrible, a European-African hybrid.

His work made use of a certain mixed language of the purest Oxford English and the colloquial Pidgin English used in Africa . His work also had influences from African languages ​​(including Ga and Fante ) and mixed everything into a linguistically excellent performance.

Works

  • Search Sweet Country , Roman, 1986; German Die Sonnensucher , 1995. New edition with an afterword by Ilija Trojanow, Edition Büchergilde, Frankfurt am Main, 2015, ISBN 978-3-86406-052-6 .
  • Woman of the Airplanes , Roman, 1988
  • Godhorse , volume of poetry, 1989
  • Major Gentl and Achimota Wars , Roman, 1992

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Writers pay tribute to Kojo Laing: 'Africa's best novelist, by far' - Binyavanga Wainaina In: The ReadingList, accessed April 26, 2017
  2. ↑ a b Holger Ehling (Hrsg.) / Peter Ripken (Hrsg.): The literature of Black Africa. A lexicon of the authors . Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42033-8 , p. 65.
personal data
SURNAME Laing, Kojo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laing, Bernard Ebenezer (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ghanaian author of novels and poetry
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Kumasi , Ghana
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 2017
Place of death Ghana