Teacher talks about how he learned that “money was life.” He reflects that those times turned people into animals and made them hopeless and desperate. They would visit the Employment Office with a sense of futility, knowing there would be nothing for them that could fulfill the sense of promise they felt through the influence of the wee. The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born is a novel set during the last days of the Nkrumah government in Ghana. It’s about a man resisting corruption, quixotically in the view of most of those around him. The scathing portrayal of a corrupt society is all the sharper because of the contrast with the optimism that came with independence; it’s a novel, among other things, about the loss of hope. A kind of Animal Farm of post-colonialism. Days before publication, however, I received an express message: someone at the publishing house had decided to substitute a different blurb for mine. I looked at it and was appalled. My blurb had been focused on the content of the book. The substitute blurb pushed the book aside and placed the author's person at the centre of attention, as if the novel were about me. There was something said about my being Harvard-educated, and having had to leave Africa because the only reality inside the continent was rot, corruption, etc. Corruption is so rife, that sometimes people don’t steal, not because they believe it to be wrong, but because they don’t have the guts to and are therefore considered cowards. With regard to the protagonist, the novel goes as far as questioning the man’s ability to control himself, considering that he would be admired by everyone, make his family proud and even be secretly happy for a brief moment if he could do what everyone asked of him and lose control of himself and behave like someone he was not and never would be.

Though it took me some chapters to get into the story, I started appreciating the novel and the main character (the man) more and more while progressing towards the end. Though the man is considered by society (and by his loved ones) as a weak person and a fool, he is truely very strong for not giving in to the temptation of choosing "rotten, sweet ways".A world where the rich wants to get richer and the poor--well the poor want a life beyond outdoor latrines, long, non-airconditioned bus rides, and one-room houses: Koomson, just like all other corrupt officials (after all, he who does not steal in Ghana and in Africa is plain stupid), sets an example in Oyo’s mind (the man’s wife), and in the mother-in-law’s, who insist that the man should take advantage of all possible means, be they illicit or not, to get rich and become someone of importance. Regarding Oyo, Teacher even goes as far as saying to the man that he will have to leave her to enjoy her own sadness, unless he is willing to destroy himself to feed her desires. Koomson, who has risen in the ranks in the Nkrumah regime, mingles with his former peers “but only like a white man or a lawyer now,” and Teacher reflects on the great disappointment that Koomson now symbolizes: “It may be terrible to think that this was what all the speeches, all the hope, all the love of the first days was for. It is terrible, but it is not a lie.” Similarly, the promise represented by the lawyer Maanan supported, as well as the passion he stirred in the crowd of Ghanians, failed. Teacher and the man are more enlightened because they can see the truth that the postcolonial systems are not working for Ghana’s people. These characters are not like so many of the “sleepwalkers” described early in the novel, those who go about their daily lives in a stupor. However, awareness results in a crushing pessimism about the nation’s future. Achebe, Chinua. "Africa and Her Writers", in Morning Yet on Creation Day, New York: Anchor Press, 1975, p. 40. Chicago style: The Free Library. S.v. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.." Retrieved Nov 28 2023 from https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Beautyful+Ones+Are+Not+Yet+Born.-a0206404355

Armah himself notes, in a preface to a new edition of the novel published by his own publishing house, Per Ankh: [7] The destructive thing wee does is to lift the blindness and to let you see the whole of your life laid out in front of you. . . . Its truth is the deep, dangerous kind of truth that can certainly frighten you into a desarate, gloomy act. This is one well written book. At times it is gritty, full of despair, hopelessness and the filth of human waste. It paints the picture of an educated Ghanian civil servant, only known as the man, living with the only thing he has - his values - which sees him reject the Ghanian national sport of corruption in a country where socialism has failed due to the greed of the government and those who were in positions of power. MLA style: "The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.." The Free Library. 2009 IC Publications Ltd. 28 Nov. 2023 https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Beautyful+Ones+Are+Not+Yet+Born.-a0206404355

Telegram Group - Msomi Bora

It is clear that Oyo desires the respect of those around her and wants to be viewed as belonging to a higher class than she actually does. In the taxi on the way to the Koomson residence, Oyo feels important when she mentions the name of the neighborhood, a wealthy area, to the driver. She makes a point to bring up relatives who have travelled or who bear other status markers that could be favorably connected with Oyo herself. When Koomson and Estella come to the man and Oyo’s home for dinner, Oyo wants to serve the finest European liquor and is dismayed when her husband can find only local beer. She is keenly aware of the distance between Estella’s position and her own and easily adapts her speech and mannerisms to convey an attitude of deference towards those of higher status. Near the end of the novel, however, Oyo undergoes a significant change when Koomson falls from power and comes to their house, weak and dependent. She then admits to the man that she is grateful that he did not become like Koomson. Koomson The truth of the matter is that the man feels awful at having to take such ‘honest’ decisions, as they contradict the general trend that applauds corruption. Corruption is ever present in society, that even if you wanted to pursue corrupted officials so as to convey an image of public honesty, the investigation committee would be set up by the corrupted officials themselves, along with the ‘transparent’ structures needed to save themselves. Koomson and Estie return a dinner invitation to Oyo and the man. The man is once again bombarded with feelings of guilt and shame when he sees the material differences between his children’s lives and that of Koomson’s daughter, Princess. He chooses not to sign the fishing boat deal, but Oyo signs the documents.

Ayi Kwei Armah set out to take a stand, make a political statement, and it is evident in every part of the book. A lot of similes, a lot of hyperbole, painful description, and LOTS of pontification. It is annoying, and it makes the book painful to read, but it also gets his point across very well.Derek Wright, Ayi Kwei Armah's Africa: The Sources of His Fiction, Hans Zell Publishers, 1989, ISBN 978-0905450957.