“The self and the world against which it had to live”: Neocolonialism and the resistant subject in Ayi Kwei Armah’sThe Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Abstract

Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968) has been read in terms of its political criticism of the native elite in Nkrumah's post-independence Ghana, and for its treatment of individual consciousnessbut these elements have been treated largely in isolation from each other. This article argues that the novel establishes a nuanced interdependency between subjectivity and the material everyday of neocolonialism, grounding its exploration of the psychic strain of such conditions on its exposé of Ghana's neocolonial economy. Defining subjectivity in Fanonian terms, it argues that the multi-temporality of Beautyful Ones, and its treatment of its protagonist's interiority, illustrate how the self and its socio-economic conditions are mutually constitutive, explanatory and effectual. The neocolonial circumstances that Armah's protagonist navigates each day equip him with the consciousness to historicize his psychic malaise. In this way, the novel gestures towards what a resistant subject, responsive to such corrupt conditions, might be.