Kojo Laing

B. Kojo Laing or Bernard Kojo Laing (1 July 1946 – 20 April 2017) was a Ghanaian novelist and poet, whose writing is characterised by its hybridity, whereby he uses Ghanaian Pidgin English and vernacular languages alongside standard English. His first two novels in particular – Search Sweet Country (1986) and Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) – were praised for their linguistic originality, both books including glossaries that feature the author's neologisms as well as Ghanaian words. Quotes Destiny is such a selfish thing: it not only achieves itself when particular things happen, but also when the opposite of everything is realized. The minute you locked yourself in ultimate certainty you lost a great deal of your freedom. The minute you thought there was greater excitement in uncertainty and in determinacy then you were severely limiting your freedom. When all facts get finished you then entered the insights. The thing about divinity was that the minute you discovered or invented such presence, it took on a life of its own and exhorted worship and doctrine as constant means of re-creation and re-experience. Quotes on Big Bishop Roko and the Altar gangster Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters is surreal, ontological, theological, scatological, genealogical, genie-o-logical, dream logical. It’s a story told around a nuclear-green campfire, the wordman’s wordweird wordworld forming a fantasyscape of multiple dimensions. Indeed, several cities real or imagined are mentioned but the focus is on Gold Coast City in Ghana. The wordman is hired through force by the narrative’s main obsession, Big Bishop Roko Yam, yet the nameless wordman struggles at times to maintain control of the story, getting complaints and unsolicited influence from Roko himself, who wants to be portrayed a certain way, and even from other characters like the thief and later Roko’s enemy ZigZag Zala: “There were your decimarvels trying to change a changing bishop (like entering a spin from the middle) while simultaneously going for goals that were not mutable but traditional. And ZigZag Zala so ravenous for his cause against the bishop (and this same cause being a means to greater smuggling) that he spilled over into the story and often demanded his own paragraphs. About his work Search Sweet Country (1986) When it was first published by Heinemann in 1986, Laing’s masterpiece was difficult to categorize—it resisted being termed magical realism, resisted being termed satire. Its plot is thin and sketches some occurrences that follow a failed horse-smuggling effort at the international airport in Accra. Its characters are many, their stories told in a non-chronological manner. Its environment and emotional tone fueled by the narrative confusion. But the praise was unanimous. Foreign Affairs declared that it “breaks new ground for the genre.” The New York Times Book Review described it as “surreal and satirical; every sentence is relentlessly figurative,” observing that Laing “has found an original voice that is all the stronger for making few concessions to the Western reader: wild, sophisticated, sorrowful. Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) Coming two years after Search Sweet Country, Laing’s sophomore effort built on the unique position he was carving out for himself among writers of his generation. Set in Tukwan, Ghana—“a town of goats, elephants, ducks, lakes and lawyers”—and Levansvale, Scotland, it follows immortal inhabitants who aim to “invent in order to survive, despite the paradox that inventions will condemn them to greater immortality.” The novel employs the humour and satire of Ghanaian folktales with metaphorical imagery and exoticism. Kirkus Reviews underlines it as “stunningly original and often stylistically brilliant…in a bewildering profusion of characters, ideas, and events. Godhorse (1989) Fresh from the new fame from his first two novels, Laing turned up this 64-page collection dealing with nature, love, death, politics and everyday life. It was published by Heinemann African Writers Series in 1989. Arguably the least discussed of his works, there is relatively little information about the collection online. Major Gentl and Achimota Wars (1992) With his third novel and fourth book, Kojo Laing went futuristic, sci-fi and ecological. Beginning in the year 2020, a year in which Africa has been reborn, this surrealistic tale focuses on the struggle between two warriors, Major Gentl and Torro the Terrible, for the control of Achimoto City, and leads up to a final battle for the fate of continent. In the book’s “total war,” writes Chimurenga‘s The Chronic, “mutant insects, birds, fruits, animals, vegetables and the humans…fight for the right to futurity against an overseas enemy only discernible through cyber proxies and decoys. The futuristic warfare methods employed in the book’s world are a bit odd. With the UN observing, each side’s army can be only large enough to fit in a specific area, and to avoid injuring people, the fighters can only shoot into the ground. Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters (2006) Published by Woeli Publishing Services, Laing’s witty last novel is rendered in dark humour and anchored by religious figures interested as much in genetic engineering as they are in class divisions. Here, the Anglican Bishop Roko applies both science and doctrine in his work on different types of sharks and their sperm, hoping to unleash a mutation of the human race in order to “free all the truths locked up in the different cultures, to free all the divinity locked up in different religions, and to free and learn from the most complex ethical beings of the universe.” Meanwhile, the Pope, who is devoted to ecumenism and “loves boxing over the telephone,” and the Archbishop of Canterbury are unable to stop him from achieving this. Like in his last novel before this, war is inevitable. This is 366 pages of non-conventional narration. “The story,” writes Fredu Agyeman, “is not told by an omniscient narrator nor by a first person who plays a major part of the story but by a narrator who ‘threads’ on the periphery of events and plays a moderate role in the events.” The novel has even been read as an allegory for “the changing landscape of global digital access. About his works External links Category:Novelists from Ghana Category:Poets from Ghana Category:1946 births Category:2017 deaths