Perhaps these two contemporary writers differ mainly in the sources of their influences. Yet, in spite of Ayi Kwei Armah’s absorption in the ideas of Frantz Fanon, and
Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s alignment with a folksy kind of Marxism, both writers explore the actual, spiritual and moral terrain of African life and history. Both express a concern for African wholeness;
both are disturbed by a history of European exploitation in Africa; both have attacked the notion that economic relationships among people can be meaningfully studied from emotional and moral concerns;
and yet both writers seem convinced that humans cannot produce good work unless they are themselves good. This course will study the complete up-to-date writing of these two writers with a view to
assessing the value of their contribution to modern African thought.