Thinking a Post-coronavirus Africa: Reading Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon in the Era of Covid-19

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed Africa’s precarious position within the global system. Once again, Africa is looking to the West for salvation in the form of vaccines and loans. Beyond the economic crisis, however, perhaps the most telling impact of the pandemic is not death but the shame of being postcolonial — a shame that arises from the painful realization that postcolonial is a condition of dependency. There is therefore a growing a critical voice on a post-coronavirus world. However, much of the discussion is taking place in the sciences and the social sciences, to the neglect of the humanities, especially literature. This paper addresses this lacuna by arguing that Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon (1995) can help us think a post-coronavirus Africa. Focusing specifically on the title of the novel as encapsulating a narrative of crisis that decolonizes the “beyond” and a subtle pedagogy on how to transcend postcolonial conceptual and material dependency on the West, the paper argues that Darko’s exploration of the shame of being postcolonial and postcolonial liberation is relevant to thinking about a post Covid-19 Africa. It concludes that Darko’s ethico-political vision is located in her subtle affirmation of Fanon’s call on Third World countries to strategically delink from Europe and the West in order to realize and inaugurate a genuine postcoloniality.

Pandemic Poetry and Interventions in World on the Brinks: An Anthology of Covid-19 Pandemic: A Postcolonial Reading

“…(210-11) Although an overview of Nigerian literature reveals that it was Elechi Amadi that first referred to pandemic, faintly, in his novel Great Ponds (1970), poetry writers in Nigeria have now surpassed other genres on the subject. For instance, there are few outings for the screen such as Moses Inwang's Lockdown (2021) and a one-track album titled Coronavirus (2020) by Ebenezer Obey.…”

“I am his pawn, his slave and his property”: A stylistic analysis of the abuse of women in Amma Darko's beyond the horizon

“…These difficulties include physical and domestic abuses, rape and lack of financial opportunities, among others. Other scholars (Asempasah & Sam, 2016;Lefara, 2017;Joseph Peter, 2022) identify and discuss the structural logics that drive the narrative dynamics in the novel, Beyond the Horizon. Asempasah and Sam, for example, examine the demythologization of Europe as the privileged place of redemption and reconstituting the self.…”

“…recent works likeAsempasah (2022) contribute to the relevance of Darko"s work in the era of post Covid-19. Asempasah, therefore, argues (among other things) that Darko"s exploration of the shame of being post-colonial and postcolonial liberation is necessary to thinking about a post-Covid-19 Africa and the need for Africa to systematically detach itself from western influence.…”

Becoming conscious of the self: Spatial dynamics, character pairs and the feminist vision in Amma Darko’s beyond the horizon

“…The commitment of Amma Darko"s writings cannot be underestimated, despite their supposed indictment on the African society (Anyidoho, 2003;Adjei, 2010;Nutsukpo, 2019). A cursory look at the burgeoning critical commentary on Darko"s debut, Beyond the Horizon indicates a tilted focus on transnational bodies and migratory subjectivities (Chasen, 2010;Asempasah & Sam, 2016;Ladele, 2016), sex, pornography, profanity and prostitution (Abeka, Marfo & Bonku, 2014;Frais, 2002), female battery, the danger of objectification, the social ills in contemporary Africa (Awitor, 2013;Oseghale & Ohwiwerei, 2019;Sam, 2021) and a careful attempt at subverting patriarchal narratives of the female character (Blay, 2014;Ugwanyi, 2017;Ngwaba, 2019;Sam, 2021).…”