Cameron Duodu

Fascinating look at post-independence Ghana. The Gab boys are the Gaberdine Boys immaculately dressed but shut out of Ghanaian society (mostly British educated locals who have commandeered plum positions in the post-colonial government) and doomed to spotty or non-existent employment. Duodu's novel is brimful of life even as he tackles the political issues of the day.

The Gab Boys

This book has a similar theme to Ayi Kwei Armah’s 1969 “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” The focus of both books is the lives of Ghanaians in immediate post colonial Ghana. In this book the focus is on the half educated young people torn between lives as farmers and the elusive class mobility they have been told would come with education.  The experiences of one of these alienated young men provide the author, Cameron Duodu, with a vehicle for reflecting on the roots of corruption in Ghana, the conflict between individualism and collectivism and other such philosophical questions.

One thing I didn’t enjoy is how women are represented in this novel, it’s incredibly sexist.

Last thing is I find it interesting how Nkurumah's Ghana inspired so much literature on him and he’s comrades failures as leaders while Nkurumah and he’s work is lauded in the west. While he was building Africa's first independent country on socialist policies and ideals he’s citizens didn’t care so much for it and he was eventually deposed it reminds me of this spectacular essay I read from africa is country “Anti-imperialism for the ruling class” where writer William Shoki states “

Non-aligned internationalism could never crystallize into a fully coherent program because it lacked a mass character. It was coordinated by esteemed statesmen like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Senghor, and Nasser, but as a politics lacked expression in durable working-class institutions and labor movements. However, working-class institutions were underdeveloped in the first place because the sociological conditions for mass society and associational life—industrialization and collective provision through a strong state—never came to pass.

In this book and many others that came after Ghanaian independence, Ghanaians speak with contempt on the socialist ideals of the Nkurumah class as it never materialized into anything for them.

https://africasacountry.com/2023/05/anti-imperialism-for-the-ruling-class

Marion

This book has a similar theme to Ayi Kwei Armah’s 1969 “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” The focus of both books is the lives of Ghanaians in immediate post colonial Ghana. In this book the focus is on the half educated young people torn between lives as farmers and the elusive class mobility they have been told would come with education.  The experiences of one of these alienated young men provide the author, Cameron Duodu, with a vehicle for reflecting on the roots of corruption in Ghana, the conflict between individualism and collectivism and other such philosophical questions.

One thing I didn’t enjoy is how women are represented in this novel, it’s incredibly sexist.

Last thing is I find it interesting how Nkurumah's Ghana inspired so much literature on him and he’s comrades failures as leaders while Nkurumah and he’s work is lauded in the west. While he was building Africa's first independent country on socialist policies and ideals he’s citizens didn’t care so much for it and he was eventually deposed it reminds me of this spectacular essay I read from africa is country “Anti-imperialism for the ruling class” where writer William Shoki states “Non-aligned internationalism could never crystallize into a fully coherent program because it lacked a mass character. It was coordinated by esteemed statesmen like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Senghor, and Nasser, but as a politics lacked expression in durable working-class institutions and labor movements. However, working-class institutions were underdeveloped in the first place because the sociological conditions for mass society and associational life—industrialization and collective provision through a strong state—never came to pass.”

In this book and many others that came after Ghanaian independence, Ghanaians speak with contempt on the socialist ideals of the Nkurumah class as it never materialized into anything for them.

https://africasacountry.com/2023/05/anti-imperialism-for-the-ruling-class